Intermittent discrimination of public service vehicles along Wazarat road in Juba town

By Atok Dan Baguoot. 

The public transport sector in major towns in Southern Sudan is always a headache especially during the rush hours more so in Juba town where almost 80% of the roads are undergoing maintenance and tarmacking, given the normal traffic police duty in providing decent security protection to our VIPs and other credential visitors of the South who normal need special services when on the road. 

Wazarat road links Juba town with Konyokonyo, Ministries and other busy trading centres in Juba. It is the only service-providing pathway that can ease public and private businesses in terms of quick service delivery in the autonomous capital. As a poor young nation that has just emerged out of the longest war on the continent, almost 98% of the Juba population lack personal vehicles which facilitate faster transport to their daily workplaces hence, public service vehicles (PSV) are highly used regardless of social status. 

According to GoSS Labour and Public Services Ministry, the normal working minute starts at 8:30am -5:00pm and within that time allocated all workforces have to click in at that very time so that you end up having worked for eight hours at the end of the day. The regular stressful experience on Wazarat road in Juba is the intermittent discrimination of public vehicles on that very road in the name of providing security to VIPs. 

Public buses are denied the use of the road, especially during the rush hours which normally resulted in late reporting to workplaces whose effect is reduced performance from an economical logical viewpoint. There is a need for decent protection of our VIPs given the dominance of terrorism and terror-minded activities all over the globe, and also to offer them special time as their calendars are occupied, but there is also a need to weigh the yield of combined efforts exerted by the entire public whose success in the economy depends shall be judged. 

Public service vehicle users formed 95% of our workers hence, their contribution is also 95% and this is a fact of reality if we are to liberate ourselves economically in order to realize total freedom. Hoisting our beautiful flag higher above the sea level is just an inch unless our efforts on market go higher than that and the barometer of determining it, is an efficient transport system. 

We need time and road apportionment. Signals of VIPs' motorcades are enough to make public buses offer safe passage for our beloved leaders unlike putting total barricades for some hours in the name of offering a safe journey. It has a quality of discrimination because while prohibiting public service buses, GoSS numbered cars and other private motorists do go simultaneously while offering space for VIP motorcades to penetrate. 

Here, it doesn’t make sense when we want to talk in terms of security provisions for VIPs. To me, these private motorists/cars pose more threats than even public vehicles frustrated travelers battling with life to ensure that bread is availed on the table of his/her family at the end of the day and denying them quick travel to their markets/workplaces at times is like depriving them oxygen. 

Lastly, traffic police have to patrol to monitor the movements of these economic crucial sectors without subjecting them to high time. I’m a traveler of the said department and I normally find it hard to tolerate because my normal morning plan is to get to my work in time with a lot of ease.

Let war be history in these elections

By Atok Dan Baguoot

“In the democracy of the dead, all men, at last, are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave” Voting for SPLM in these elections would be a definite genesis of the second liberation for Northern marginalized, Islamized, and Arabised African Sudanese that were not directly or indirectly involved in the two decades war of liberation fought in Southern Sudan of which other exposed peripherals like Southern Blue, Nuba Mountains as well as eastern fronts participated. 

In fact, debates heated up the atmosphere between the SPLM and the National Congress Party NCP during the 2008 Sudan Fifth Household Census on the questions of Ethnicity and religion with a consistent stance by the SPLM to overhaul the questionnaires of inclusivity of questions on ethnicity and creeds, besides demographic facts. 

In every Census, there are predominant factors considered why census ought to be carried out in any nation especially in rare cases where the civil population was partially involved in protracted wars and massive migrations whether be it internal or external displacement like the case of Sudan. It is always a global assumption that lives were lost and children were born in the continuity of normal life but with intention of equating death to birth rate, besides the emphasis on how conflicts affected normal traditional settlements of the people hereafter long unrest, the census is always preferred to establish facts. 

Sudan is never exceptional because the civil population was displaced, lives were lost, and the traditional economic aspect of the people was in ruin leaving the rural population in total destitute, and in economic disarrays. Urban settlements were overhauled as the population moved to safer zones for periodical safeguards. Today, major towns in northern Sudan outburst as the population shot up in the shortest time as opposed to normal population growth given the fact that this very rural population urban and migration was forceful and given the deplorable conditions in which they are subject to, societies, communities, and individuals end up bending some of their traditional norms and customs to forge a new way of survival in that new environment and hence, assimilations through marriages of conveniences resulted into half breed offspring whose identities remain loyal to economic muscular individuals. 

The victims of such an unintended ploy were Black African tribes in both the South and the North and whose social beings were disrupted by social injustices as well as cross-cultural settlement patterns. Their daughters went for light-skinned or Afro-Arab men for the sake of survival because these men were historically privileged on the expenses of oppressed Africans. 

These were reasons why questions of ethnicity and religion were thrashed off as a matter of denying the true natural account of what this unfortunate country faceted. With false preaching in Northern Sudan pronouncing this country as both an Arab and Islamic state, these facts would have prevailed wrong in the previous census if the two components of ethnicity and religion were answered in the exercise. Now Sudan remains an Arab and Islamic state because of political dishonesty through genocidal procedures. 

Force displacement, trickery assimilation, and economic tortures amount to genocide in one way or the other. 

People lose their cultures, land, and even direct torturing and killings which deprived them of their cultural pride, subjecting them to a state of cultural inferiority or even seeing themselves as either a weak race or society, based on these silent intended strategies. But because these very people still have that cultural ego not completely deleted in them, the Arabs reinforce the strategy through a force like by inculcating into them rejection, self-identification, giving them Islamic names, and a forced belief. 

In the case of Sudan, Islamic names and beliefs were enforced as substitutes for their African norms and beliefs. In order to break these cycles, it is only possible through voting in SPLM in these elections so that a new political dispensation is created to provide equal opportunities to all the Sudanese people who are oppressed for so long. As a political force founded among the oppressed and none privileged Sudanese, it is ready to awaken our recess genes in recalling who we are exactly. It is called self-recognition. 

 Having stayed in slavery for a period older than my thirty years on earth, these black Africans actually need a concept of total liberation to dominate they are gone to recess genes so that they are able to stand tall in their persons and communities to revive and rejuvenate their cultures minus the conditionally acquired Arab cultures. Voting for SPLM to be the dominant party in Northern Sudan in these elections would actually catalyze recuperation processes among these culturally enslaved people because SPLM envisioned this war for cultural, economic, and social identification. That‘s why a renowned Southern Sudanese professor and an advisor to United Nations UN Secretary-General on Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Dr. Francis M Deng titled one of his famous books “War of Vision and Conflicts of Identities” referring to the protracted civil wars fought in Sudan. 

In this context, Dr. Francis Deng specifically summarized the Sudanese quest for freedom in a title of a book because it is all that SPLM was founded on, with a derivative core conception from the Pan Africanism as seen in Sudan African National Union SANU. SPLM and SANU were offspring and abstracted from the idea of the Closed Districts Ordinance then during the colonial periods. But unlike the SANU, SPLM had vibrant and lively objectives with a lot of zeal and enthusiasm among the Africans from those areas referred to as closed Districts. Current SPLM deputy chairman, Malik Agar, and Late Yusuf Kuwa Mekki are prominent examples of those who ushered the way forward among the northern black Africans enslaved in northern parts of Sudan. 

In my descriptions, they are never exceptional, however, their stance shaped the Movement into a recognized national liberation army that wanted to liberate the whole country from Arabs hegemony. It is the African tribes that were subjected to neo-colonialism in the country in spite of their massive contributions to realizing the independence of Sudan on 1.1.1956. 

For this matter, SPLM is the only choice and preferred option among the Northern marginalized African nationalities if they are to live a free life like the rest of their kin and kiths later in independent South Sudan as secession is eminent, comes the year 2011 referendum for the people of Southern Sudan. In the case of Abyei, the ax is already grounded despite the fact that it is a bitter pill to swallow among our northern brothers. 

As a person bordering Nuba Mountains, I know how costly it would be for the Nuba people to stand together advocating a uniform voice in ushering a new destiny in their popular consultation due to their existing ideological and political differences apart from deep Islamic influence on the region. In such a case, SPLM remains the only preferred option if they like to be a Nuba well adjacent to South Sudan, unlike their brothers the Nubia in the far North whose social settlement, political life, and traditional settlement were straddled across the international boundaries of Sudan and Egypt, the former political mentor of Sudanese Arab descendants in Sudan. 

In reference to the SPLM principle of liberating the marginalized, this concept would have been widely accepted amongst them because its referential sense made more impact in the north than in Southern Sudan the birthplace of the party. SPLM is their rightful remedy because if South Sudan secedes without them being granted their inalienable rights, it would be very difficult if not impossible for them to forge a cultural pride and identity or economic leverages due to their cultural docility and submissiveness to Arabs as signified by their easy acceptance to Islamic Cultures. 

It is a known fact today that Arab tribes form the majority of the Sudanese whereas Islam remains the religion of the majority thus, the two qualities of an Islamic state are met on assumption that Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Eastern Sudan are cultured Arabs especially when some of them don’t voice in their tribal tongues or languages and don’t profess their African faith. Southern Sudan has withstood this simple temptation of Arabisation and Islamisation by tough adherence to indigenous customs and beliefs. 

If SPLM had succeeded in persuading NCP to add questions of ethnicity and religion on the census form, professors of history in Sudan would have been taken to the court of law for having misled the country or their academic papers would have been confiscated if not revoked because new history is to be rewritten and Sudan becomes a nation historical misled by educated fellows. To me, a graduate of history today in Sudan is worth none of the paper he/she holds because he underwent training through distorted syllabi. 

It is also worth mentioning that SPLM as the only vocal instrument that has shown up as a tough challenger to NCP and its extremist ideologies is optional because life would be normal if they take over in the north despite a separate South Sudan. Let marginalized survive SPLM in the North so that it advocates for their long denied and hidden rights. It is because we had learned enough from all other Sudanese political forces that have ruled Sudan since independence. 

If they had the political will to grant rights to the marginalized, they would have done it since there were neither visible nor invisible barricades preventing them from doing so voluntarily. So marginalized cannot rely on any political party in the North because enough is enough. 

Therefore, the only possible avenue the hope among the marginalized Sudanese is to vote for the SPLM whether be it at the presidency or in various legislative Assemblies in order to have decent human life otherwise, there would always be an unfilled vacuum of political doubts as our country is characterized by political dishonesty especially the ruling class which we have known for sometimes. Voting for the SPLM would remain the beginning of the second liberation for the oppressed Sudanese in northern Sudan.

Let’s defend our political titles

By Atok Dan Baguoot. 

In a nation where titles are shared, the only person robbed of the prestige is the president. Today in Southern Sudan, titles are shared regardless of the positions and rank a person holds. In many countries, only the president, vice president, ambassadors, and other few dignitaries deserve the title of “His Excellence” normally abbreviated as H.E. In our case, almost every dignitary carries that title but the funny thing here is that an outsider could wonder what specific title to use when addressing a boss in his/her office. 

Ministers share the same title of H.E. with the president, vice president, ambassadors as well as County Commissioners and head of independent Commissions. In Southern Sudan, president, his vice president and ambassadors are robbed of that title of H.E. It is a country of excellence performers. 

The philosophical concept behind the use of such titles is associated with its acquisitions. You earn a title or acquire it through recognition from a respected institution. For instance, the title honorable is derived from the academic title honorary, and his excellence also originated from the nursery school concept of motivating young kids to concentrate on their studies. 

Whenever a child gets some good marks, the tutor has to reward that child with that title in order to make him/her do much and also to motivate other kids who might have not gotten it to do the same. Some teachers do stick a yellowish shine decorated cartoon-like structure in an exercise book of that kid who has done well and if it is seen by others, they all strive hard to get that too. 

Nevertheless, these titles are accorded in same manner. A president and his vice deserve that title because after being preferred as the only persons to head a nation out of many who competed for the post, only one person is opted for by the whole majority therefore, he/she becomes H.E like a kid who has gotten the required marks proposed by the teacher. 

An Ambassador also qualifies for the title simply because he represents his nation in a foreign country alone out of the many that would have done too. In a country where leaders rise to high leadership position through other means apart from democratic elections, the title becomes imposed. South Sudan is not exceptional and whoever carries that title does so because of either historical background of liberation struggle or any other equivalent means. 

The President of the government of Southern Sudan and his vice also became suited to the title because of their struggling backgrounds. Life in the bush was unbearable and many didn’t dare to withstand the hardship hence, they deserve it too. But not all deserve it also because it becomes monotony and as a result it would either sound like mere mockery instead of decent and respectful address, besides it distinctive use. The title Honorable is commonly used in the like situation derived from the competition though it has definite distinction where it can also suit the bearer. 

Apart from it being an academic title, a member of parliament can also have it before his/her name to signify how he acquired the title MP. A Member of Parliament competes with the rest in order to win the interest of the constituency to become their representative in the parliament. Without that subjectivity, you cannot be honoured with the title but unless there is a dictate signifying the use. 

Our current MPs have that condition qualifying them for the title. But the question next door is that as their constitutional term expires, will they retain it or fresh mandate is needed from them? The term is so comfortable that one always wishes to have it up to the last day to the grave or world where there is no title, not even academic doctorate. 

For those religious, a saint is a title that people scramble although it is left in the cemetery with white clothes a dead body is draped. That is the fact about the world of true equality. Let’s go for free and fair elections so that we continue using our distinguished titles without complains, otherwise, they won’t make meaning. Our president spoke nicely in Monday’s peaceful demonstration telling the public that the registration exercise was peaceful and this signifies peaceful elections. This message went to those who had in the back of their minds to retain their titles in dishonest manner. 

The only person who knows how tough to run a government where almost everybody is appointed is the President. He said he is tired of answering phone calls instructing him to remove any of his legislators and governors every now and then. H.E. President Mayardit said he will be relieved from answering phone asking him to remove a leader if all leaders are elected by their own people. Not even a fool will dare call Mr. President to remove anybody if all are democratically elected. 

It would also be a chance for those fearing the weight of their titles to lift them lighter. Honorable will be truer and unconditionally imposed. As the constitutional term of our MPs expires, it would be very difficult for the President to form another parliament without elections because deriving to criteria for selecting the next incumbents of the August House would prove tough. For instance, if H.E. the President goes for Mr. Atok Dan to be the next honorable for Parieng County in juba parliament, in his mind will be the criterion of getting me out of that one hundred thousand population of Panaruu Dinka.

This personal question will also transcend in the minds of local persons deep in the village asking the president the same question how he got that person whom we hate most again. By the way I like the prefix honorable but the question lingering in my mind is that, do I have what it takes to be so before I reach them the “barometers” who will gauge my performances? 

This is the question that keeps away most of our current MPs from their constituencies. Those rating zero in their constituencies will never even think of uttering even a mere negative political rhetoric before their populace and thus, they either prefer a unilateral declaration of the independence of the South to a peaceful referendum or a magical shortcut to a referendum without elections so that by God’s luck they continue enjoying their tenant without disturbances yet not knowing that the whole South wants elections because of them. 

A president can run a nation with his cabinet plus the effort from security forces but for the sake of accountability and proximity of power to the people, an answerable parliament ought to be so that power is closer to the people in a devolved manner so that it links the people with the further center. Lastly, let’s quench our bloody thirst by instituting an answerable system which our kids and generations would be proud of before historians could settle with their facts as history does not forgive. Be careful of reckless utterances otherwise our intuition tones dance in compliance with whatever we speak.

Youth, take over the leadership of this country

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

The time has come for us to say goodbye and bye to old ways of doing things to express and exercise our choices in a fashion of queues and lines in determining our shaky and always gloomy futures as analysts put it. The time has come for us to put aside our broken of yesterdays and to begin new dawn, full of hope, happiness, and joy for our generation and posterity. 

“The torch has been passed to a generation tempered by wars, who bore the hardship of economic distress and political turmoil” US President Barack. The time has come for us to put our names on the white and black register book for the forthcoming elections in which most of us are going to vote for the first time in our life. 

I who was born late 1970s is also on board with us. Register now and check that you have registered and confirm that your name is spelt clearly. Days are numbered. The torch has been passed down to us the youth of Southern Sudan, three areas of Abyei, South Blue Nile, and Nuba Mountains, and the entire marginalized who bore the brunt of civil wars, whose life shrunk beneath the feet of absolute destitute. Let us register to vote. 

There are only a few days that are left in this calendar year in which our country will try the long coveted and desired moment of democratic elections of choosing who to sit in our parliaments and other palaces, who to decide on our daily and future affairs. Our forefathers fought for it likewise we tested the same baptism of fire at our earlier ages. Our time is ripe enough to spearhead the exercise. We had been robbed and denied of our chances: that series of generations passed without testing the taking over their rights. In fact, the secret behind a presidential term limit in modern leadership power transfer is to give each and every generation there chance. 

For the case of five years, two terms define exactly what a generation is and if the tenant goes beyond that very limit, then a certain generation has been robbed or denied. So many generations have been robbed of their chances for instance, President Bashir has snatched chance of one generation and that generation is ready to sneak away with chance of another generation and the game continues to generation and posterity. This defines a series and generations of conflicts on the continent of Africa. Sudan is never exceptional. 

In the African context of leadership, elders do tell young people that their time will come, and indeed when that time comes, they deserve it. In Dinka Society, midwives begin identifying a baby at the birth of what talent that baby will grow to. Hunters, metal workers, medicines people, born leaders, and all sorts of careers were identified at a young and whenever they grow up, elders were able to know exactly who is to do what. 

This concept actually was automatic alternation of power transfer. Leadership was not robbed, unlike the White written theory which says “Power is 20% given and 80% taken. Youth, let us go for the 80% slogan because our elders are never ready for that and the only way of penetrating through is by registering now and later on voting in our large numbers. 

In African Unchained, George Ayitteh says :cheetahs and hippos, that cheetahs are the young with fresh blood to move Africa ahead while hippos as the old one whose term limit has come to an end yet they still cling to power, fiercely defending their base of attack. He said let these hippos leave watering hole and retire to shade. 

Agile and dynamic minds are needed to move us ahead for the next miles before we also retire to others. It is a natural order of things. We do not want to cause chaos to others when time comes for them. It is youth that am writing to so that they able to direct their energies to their rightful cause and cease from petty tribal and clan politics of patronage. 

Politics is never an accomplished game; you do yours and leave the rest to others. It is never a privilege to us but a duly inalienable right. “There is nothing shameful in falling down as long you are willing to stand up each time you fall”. These elders will never and never relinquish power to us. Strive for change and strive for leadership that has an oasis of hope.

Shisha smoking rocks Southern Sudan war torn cities

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

It might sound vague and fake when not properly defined but Shisha or (molasses tobacco) is a sticky dark-brown honey-like substance that has a partial sweet smell at a close distance. It is normally placed in a small silvered plastic plate metal connected with a well-decorated burette or long neck bottle that resembles a conical flask with water meant to reduce the concentration of smoke that passes through while light grayish smoke comes out of the smoker's mouth and nose building cloudy environment around them. 

Its chemical contents and compositions remain illusive although researchers believed that Shisha provides smokers with a high appetite for all sorts of foods. While smoking (sucking), a person sweats severely which signifies relief and displacement of natural body chemical energy through idle processes. Second, to that, is the question of the eating affinity of idle Shisha smokers who claimed to eat without work. What they eat remains an unanswered question in the minds of mentally realistic persons. 

It started along the Arabian Peninsula amongst sailors who do overstay in the sea coldness while sailing to all parts of the world pursuing lucrative businesses hence; it found its way to modern Arab cities both in the Middle East and Northern African cities of Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria and eventually into Khartoum by surprise. As a matter of religious facts and denials, Arab traders used it to substitute pure tobacco smoking and drinking prohibited by Islamic laws and Sharia which actually gave it unquestionable passage in those lands of facts distortion. 

Couple to that it was found not to contravene Islamic creed thus creating wider opportunities for redundant youths in all Egyptian cities to hurriedly pick it up immediately and move Southward of that glorified superior Arab nation where if something starts there then you don’t have to question. 

After it gained considerable fame in Egypt and also realized its repercussions they subsequently promulgated Parliamentary acts which barred it in public places as well as smoking during working hours but already its roots were now deepened in the Afro-Arab world's largest slum known as al Khartoum where 60% of its populace is idle according to International Labour Organization (ILO) facts finding research. 

As facts transfer, it rushed to its fertile zones of redundancy and idleness known as Southern Sudan after it was also barred by Khartoumers who had earlier on seen its negative contributions toward development. South was also its rightful place because it is a lawless and regional dumping zone of all sorts of junks discarded from all four cardinal points of the world. Prove me wrong if you can not see pictorial facts of young people smoking Shisha and drinking at 8.00Am in all our war-torn cities of the 21st Century which some people can either call our wrongful or rightful place of all kinds of illicit drugs. 

Somebody might wonder what a fake and vague idea the presenter is trying to bore him or her. Shisha is a hetero-practice of the jobless regardless of their age, sex; color even skinned bleached people religion, and region although few regions are found to be on the forefront in terms of Shisha smoking. Analytically, Southern State Capitals bordering Northern Sudan emerged the worst meanwhile our Juba is also tallying behind them. 

Mathematical figures indicate that Bentiu Unity State where the majority is supposed to be many busy leads an average of eight out of ten to be idle and smoke, while five of ten do in Aweil, Northern Upper Nile is six of ten which smoke due to redundancy. And the prime reasons that accompanied the practice are; their proximity to the North, as well as the frequent influx of Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Northern Sudan the second birth place of Shisha meanwhile other illicit drugs used, are also found dominantly along the Southern Sudan and East Africa.

Let’s maintain government properties properly

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

Unlike the formation of the government of the autonomous Southern region after the 1972 peace agreement where resources were scarce, officials of the government then had limited resources, to begin with. Few cars which were there were used in alternating phases. 

The only car which used to carry the President to the office had first ferried the Ministers to their offices earlier in the morning in order to give time for the big boss Mr. Joseph Lagu. Other government officials normally find their means to offices punctually. Uniquely, the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) brought about by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) had many advantages of which technological advancement played a pivotal role in its quick access to modern resources. 

Deputy Directors have personal government numbered plate cars which they can use even at their private businesses. Departments have a variety of resources ranging from modern office equipment. The government has provided Laptop computers owned by heads of different departments to ease the tedious jobs of lap paperwork with internet services where information is taped from office to office, although it has minimized job for office messengers. 

Because of all these resources, government properties are highly being misused by none other than office holders in the name of many that will come. We treat ourselves when sick; likewise, veterinary doctors treat animals when they are sick also. What is wrong when we take good care of the government properties, why we are unable to repair government properties more so cars which are subject to weekend damage especially when driven while half drunk? It is this very government that we had been yearning, crying about, and disturbing the whole universe to have self-determination which will soon never be a dream but reality. 

Taking keen interest on the little would give you hint on taking care of much. Sooner shall the other 50% of the oil share be given to us if the referendum affirms separation as preliminary opinion polls always suggest. “For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery,” said Jonathan Swift. It would be seen as a source of evil slavery if we cannot take good management of government properties if we cannot use properties as personal maximum care. We will be impoverished and economically enslaved. 

From the period of 2006-2008, GoSS numbered cars formed 80% of the automobile machines on this few kilometers roads of Juba, but as far now, the number is dwindling on daily basis due to reckless use. And why because of I don’t care attitude mentality and mentality of not being held accountable. And why more are coming, why because we are going away as an independent state able to manage its own affairs. Taking care of your nuances is the genesis of independence and this actually defined why we don’t understand what is needed where and when. 

I’m bothered seeing all these Japanese machine wreckages littered ever where yet they didn’t come on their own. We opted to stay hungry and spent money on these tools in order to facilitate much we needed in the future. Let there be GoSS garages where these machines should be treated before their real expiration. Allow me overstep my duty in suggesting that, the government should devise means to punish culprits accused of mishandling public property on account that good care for long lasting management is achieved at the end of the day. 

The policy of you destroy it, repair it can best work here but this does not mean burdening our young innocent drivers who are up-to-date for their duties, whose leisure rights are infringed because they work up to bars at night. The weekend is not exceptional for them due to their docility. They go stay waiting for their bosses even if it is not working hours. As a person in the heart of the government, pilfering of public properties is on high record without concern. 

Never blame our young parliament since it is a place where you go and sharpen your political blade for more political aspirations. It isn’t up to its mandate it was meant. Watch them come back to the second CPA’s parliament if they were for that job. In fact, it sounds nonsense in the minds of a few indulged but the majority will agree with me that it is a frontline job. 

Let my colleagues of the SPLA department not sit back that they are nowhere to my discourse. Their red number plate cars are under severe extinction given the nature armies do their things, although they are much stricter in handling their affairs. They are smart but their smartness seems to be fading away. To them, Bilpam road has become the real rogue Bilpam path to Bonga in which most recruits lost their lives before facing the enemy back in Sudan. 

Bilpam road is killing most SPLA sophisticated cars before facing the real tough terrains at the country sites. Lastly, a computer virus has bogged down our machines in offices yet the internet there is being used for chatting with girls and boys friends more so youngsters called the dot com generation. Few sugar mummies and daddies informed are also chatting among themselves. 

Please my dear, extra use of internet apart from chatting, sending messages and accessing other crucial information is to active antivirus on our machines so that they do work efficiently. Computers in Southern Sudan Radio where am working is the pilot project.

Projections of pools in Unity state

Atok Dan Baguoot 

If these elections are to be free and fair, the outcomes would be marvelous, interesting, and surprising because neither I nor you won’t like it and that is all about true democracy of the real democrats like what my senior college Nhial Bol called democracy of non-democrats. 

Nhial was actually right because the way SPLM nominated its flag bearers to contest in various positions indeed contradicted the wishes of the marginalized that it had been advocating to grant justice, freedom, and decent services. It is an unfortunate situation in South Sudan that a spade is normally called a big spoon and the spoon as a toothpick but if reality was to be there, they would have retained the original versions rather than that total iron. 

It is actually a simple task to fight for a just principle but hard to live to it. SPLM, like any other liberation movement on the continent, had to experience interval power wrangling and contradicts itself in executing its principles. It was never a rare and unfortunate incident for SPLM but a normal phase encountered by any movement to get to its maturity in politics but it would be up to the political party to handle its affairs without fear and favor among the cadres. 

Nomination of candidates by the political party usually portrays how united and mature is that every entity is handling its matters without favor and fear so long as the party is guided by a common ideology and belief. SPLM betrayed some of its powerful prominent leaders in the process of filing the candidates. In that concerted event, some leaders have seen themselves as being underestimated while others either got it as overestimated hence, internal rifts got conducive breeding ground. 

This actually signifies by rampant independence of most of the former party's strong diehard without a blessing from the mother party which nursed them throughout their political life. I would like to take us to a unity state where the rift was at its peak since its grass root primaries in 2008 when the former chairman and incumbent governor Taban Deng Gai lost the chairmanship of the party to his comrade Dr. Joseph N. Monytuil Wejang, the current GoSS minister for Health in a disputed manner. 

In that election, a division within the SPLM ranks was born in an oil-rich state and up to now, the two gentlemen had never sat together as people bounds by the common ideology to shape the future of the party in that state. These two gentlemen are from the same Nuer tribe, well educated and patriotic, and also from the same division according to the internal geographical and political division that unity state used to be divided in sharing power. 

The two gentlemen polarized the state population in their own neo-ideologies contrary to the common SPLM existing ideology to which the diehard of the party is supposed to adhere to. Public servants were assigned jobs in the same favor. In fact, they became bipolar (two centers of parallel powers that never met) and SPLM became a laughing stock. 

Population from the two Dinka Counties was Tabanised and Monytuilised to the extent that daily bread for living is earned based on the two great ideologies. Now that Joseph Monytuil is no longer in the competition in the post of governor according to the decision made by the party's highest organ, the political bureau and another strong woman has emerged as independent candidate and given the fact that affirmative action is also posing its way into our political way of life, coupled with grieve dislike of Taban Deng in the state. 

In reality, predictions of such a volatile event are always hard but with help of scientific opinion research, one can predict to the nearest. NCP has also filed a former governor, Paul Lily as their challenger. Masses in unity state are eager to change to the extent that they will violate the principle of better the devil you know than the angel you will know. 

The nomination of Mr. Taban Deng as the SPLM flag bearer in the post of governorship is really a blow in the face to none other than SPLM itself because it is contrary to what the southern Sudanese masses fought for in two years to decide on the kind of governance and who to govern them. In the eye of true democrats, the masses would have been allowed to choose who to represent them in a manner that respects both the party and the masses. 

The imposition of leaders on people is what Late Dr. John Garang used to describe as a regime of few cliques in Khartoum deciding on the political future of the Sudanese in their favor. If this election is to be free and fair, and with the mentality of change couple to Southern Ideology of leaning towards SPLM and if one is to be brutal frank, Angeline J Teny will win without a doubt. Why? The population is tired, bored of Taban even when you just happen to say in Arabic (ana Taban) am tired, people misquote it of Governor Taban. 

In fact, the NCP candidate will never win because Southerners are fatigued with the North and whoever is supported by the North is definitely seen as betraying their cause. Besides, that gender is an issue that needs special heed in today’s politics. In the current government of GoSS, there is only one woman out of nine men as governors thus, the three current women governor’s candidates are likely to win especially the Warrap and Unity state through Western Equatoria is somewhat still skeptical but based on her previous performances, she is to convince voters. They all come from three states found west of the River Nile in the South. One would have come from East of the Nile to at least equate well.

Back to the prediction of the same pools in the election of other candidates to various parliamentary seats, the state SPLM office failed to institute their electoral college hence, the whole thing was decided by the political bureau. Power sharing logic was applied to represent the two blocs between the Tabanised and Monytuilised affiliates and loyalists. 

Whatever did by the political bureau reflect the same ideology instead of personal contributions to the party. Equal numbers were nominated in all the counties representing bipolar as a mechanism of solving that deep-rooted difference in the state. 

 The campaign will also follow the same chain so predicting the outcome of the election would only be determined by whose loyalists have the popularity but not a party. A group affiliated with the current government would be accused of intimidating the rest while those others will cry loud of being denied access to polling centers. 

If SPLM was ready to have peace in that state, it would have nominated different candidates apart from the two as a smart way of defusing the crisis but the nomination of Taban was plainly seen as a promotion of external hegemony over the state because there is no way somebody outside can recommend me as the best yet my kids and wife in the house differ in that recommendation and you insist that my family members don’t know me.