By Joseph Akim Gordon
We are living in a world where conflicts and wars are on increase the world seems to have lost capacity to resolve man-made conflicts and wars because there are individuals benefiting from war situations. In many cases the root causes of these conflicts and wars are greed for power that will land the individual into great wealth and prosperity, the root causes of war are the leadership power struggle, tribalism, political sectionalism, religious and socio-economic superiority and many other causes. Power struggle for the presidency, it is well known that there is only one position for the presidency as a country cannot accommodate two presidents in one country, and it is through election that every political leader can campaign for the presidency when one candidate wins then he becomes the president of the country, we all know that one vehicle cannot have two drivers. One driver will make sure that he/she can increase or decrease the speed of the vehicle according to the road condition. For this reason, we need one president with a good legacy and political will to serve all the people of the country, given the diversity of the country the president must treat all the citizens equally because he/she is the president of all the citizens of the country.
Many of us were born in wartime, grew in wartime and reached old age in wartime as such many of us are well acquainted with war vocabularies and little for peace vocabularies. The war vocabularies include brutal killing of innocent, political disappearances, political persecution, robbery, absence of rule of law. And many others. The peace vocabularies include reconciliation and forgiveness, conflict resolution and mediation, and socio-economic development, we are not able to implement the positivity of peace, let us give a trial, we will be able to achieve total peace. One political leader commented on the issue of corruption that is affecting South Sudan he said that there is no need to accuse politicians for corruption without evidence and that corruption is not only confined to South Sudan, that corruption is a worldwide problem, this is true but we as a country should minimize the level of corruption we the citizens should play a leading role to minimize or stop corruption but it is the leader on the driving seat of the government to pioneer to work to end corruption, what evidence do we need, if the economy is stagnant the basic needs of the citizens are dwindling, life as almost become impossible for the most of the citizens, how have we utilize our oil and non-oil resources. When in a family if the father is not able to provide for basic family needs in many cases the blames go to the head of the family who should seek ways how to support the family members.
If the wealth of the country is enjoyed by 1% of the population and 99% live in misery, if part of your family is swimming in wealth and the rest are suffering and are not able to meet basic human requirement definitely the blames go to the head of the family, why to discriminate part of your family one-part swimming in wealth and another living in absolute poverty. I am sure this country will realize total peace when we start developing this country and when citizens realize that they are already pursuing a development path this only will be the beginning of the end of the conflict and war.
I am sure if our political leaders will change direction in favor of the citizens, and implement peace and all realize the positivity of the peace dividend surely this alone will encourage citizens to support leaders who are responsive to the citizen’s needs and all the negativity of wars will end, the war wounds will automatically get healed even the war tears will stop this will mark the end of the war in South Sudan all the citizens will appreciate the political leadership of bringing peace and development, there will be less negative tribalism all effort will be exerted to maintain peace. Let us take example of late President Mandela of South Africa, he is so much respected even after his death, many of our leaders should take the example of those African leaders although dead but their vision remains alive. Those African Leaders with good legacy will always be remembered but those with negative legacies will remain unpopular for life.
Let us encourage political leaders to work tirelessly in support of their fellow citizens to prosper, but those who are running to accumulate wealth are short-sighted, time will come when you leave this world, you will depart this world without the wrongly accumulated wealth, you came necked to this world and return to the creator necked. I encourage our South Sudan to work tirelessly for peace so that your fellow citizens enjoy life. So let God bless South Sudanese leadership, the citizens and the country as well.