The ‘Federal System’ in South Sudan is not the solution

Photo: http://apgopohannahbrown.blogspot.ca/

Since SPLM-in-Opposition declared their preference for constitutional Federal System in South Sudan, there’s been a lot of heated debate by South Sudanese in the government, in the opposition, in the media and on the street. Understandably, the discussion pits those who support it against those who don’t support it.

While I don’t have any problem with the Federal System per se, I don’t believe it’s going to solve any of our problems now and in the future. It’s true that we need a complete overhaul of our political governance and social systems in South Sudan; however, we need to understand that for any systemic transparency to work, the leadership’s attitude, the citizen-citizen relations and the general understanding of power structure, have to change. As long as the leadership’s attitude and its perception of power and the country remain the same, it doesn’t matter what system we institute in South Sudan, we’ll always remain in a mess.

Unless we have both a good system and good people in leadership, things will remain the same: bad. A good system and a bad leadership or a good leadership and a bad system are all the same: bad!

We need to understand also that a Federal System will not auto-create. The constitutional provisions that will create and inform it will still need the cooperation of all the stakeholders in the country.  It wouldn’t be a mere importation of foreign Federal Systems such as the one in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Canada, USA or any other federated governance system in the world. There has to be internal, idiosyncratic realities to be put into account.

Since power in South Sudan is concentrated in the hand of one man, the opposition see the Federal System as another way to clip the presidential powers.

However, I personally don’t think a Federal System is what we need now. All we need is a well-informed, broad-based and structured decentralization of power. What we have now is actually a form of a Federal System (even if it’s not constitutionally stated as such) as we have state parliaments and governments. It’s therefore important that state governments be given greater and functional autonomy.

This means that ministries such as Education, Agriculture, and law enforcement sectors should be given to the states. Besides, there should be no presidential and national government’s interference in running the affairs of the states; such as the removal of the governors by the president or the president being consulted by the governor on the appointment of state ministers.

State constitutions should have constitutional clauses or provisions on how to remove or replace the governors. Since governors are elected officials, they need to be removed in the same democratic manner by the state parliament as stipulated in the state constitution. And more importantly, there has to be a very well-regulated economic leeway for the states to create their own functional economic systems, internally and externally; nationally and internationally.

South Sudan’s Vice President, James Wani Igga: A problem rather than a conscientious leader

Photo: Gurtong.net

Throughout the history of South Sudan, the tribes in the three Southern states of South Sudan have always seen themselves as more amiable and ‘civilized’ compared to their Nilotic brothers, Jieeng and Naath people. While there are cases in which one can, at minimal, accept that to be true, history and a close look at the actual geopolitical realities in these three states and their inter-tribal relations, tell a different story.

So, one comes to realize that this vacuous sentiment is maintained by intellectuals and politicians in these states rather than by the average citizenry in the villages. A look at historical leaders and freedom fighters like Aggrey Jaden, Joseph Oduho, Father Saturnino, Joseph Lagu, Emedio Teffeng, Wani Igga among others, proves that South Sudanese leaders, no matter their tribes, can just be as tribalist as Jieeng and Naath people, the largest two tribes.

I’ve not seen a single case in which leaders in the three Southern states of South Sudan have acted as better leaders than the leaders from the western and eastern South Sudan.

All the governors in South Sudan suck up to the president in equal measure with no exception. Even when they know the president is wrong and that a given decision is detrimental to the future of the country, these governors would rather see the nation burn than to correctly advise the president.

But what’s my point?

After December 15, 2013 mutiny in Juba and the subsequent tribal fight that soon after turned tribal and genocidal, one would assume South Sudan could have unleashed the wisdom of their best brains to contain the situation.

When it became clear that SPLM internal leadership wrangle turned into, largely, Jieeng vs. Naath, people like me assumed other tribes in Equatoria led by the funny and always playful South Sudanese VP, James Wani Igga, would mobilize other tribes to bring Jieeng and Naath together and end the bloodshed.

But no! Wani actually became part of the problem and his speeches became increasingly divisive, opportunistic and bizarre. Instead of helping the President make sound decisions, the funny man went along with the filth fed to the president by the opportunists around the president. Instead of peace he started mobilization for war! With oxymoronic touch, he uttered peace but called the ‘Equatorians’ to mobilize for war!