Leadership crisis in South Sudan

By Luk Kuth Dak.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., once said:

The cowardice asks the question-is it safe? Expediency asks the question-is it politics? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But, conscience asks the question – is it right?

There comes a time where one must take a social or political position that is neither safe, nor popular. It is a position that one must take because it is right especially when the nation is at the crossroads. Definitively, it is a privilege to provide public service to the people who avail you the opportunity, a lifetime opportunity, to accelerate in life and succeed. In the west it is called giving back to the people on whose shoulders you rose to the pinnacles. Perhaps Southern Sudan public servants are an exception to the general rule where others see public service as a right and not a privilege. Maybe what our people need are those who took upon themselves to provide servant-leadership, which seems scarce these days. A leadership that will allow our people to live their dreams, lift-up their spirits, and bring them together united in their destiny. In many cases, public servants are role models, who must conduct themselves ethically. Consequences of their behaviors – both positive and negative – have direct or indirect effects on the people under their Leadership sometimes; an innocent slip of a tongue could end a promising career in politics.

Leaders come in different forms, but what distinguishes the greatest among them is the attitude and the willingness to learn, change, persevere, and the ability to make tougher decisions for the interest of the people in times of hardships and difficulties no matter how popular or unpopular the issues might be. Such decisions are made because they are right.

Consequently, the decision to switch from one party to another is no stranger to democracy. Parties are joined because they advocate certain principles that a member beliefs. When the party deviates from the principles in which ones beliefs in, that party is no longer ones party, therefore, the change in party affiliation is justified. In fact, people often change their political affiliations in western democracies. In the United States of America who would have thought that the architect of the modern conservativism, former President Ronald Reagan, or Late Senator, Storm Thurman of South Carolina, were progressive and liberal Democrats. However, you can be sure that their constituents were not very happy with their decisions, but they respected them. And the reward was a multiple re- reelections. More recently, a successful city administrator, a father and a husband, surprised everyone in the city, including his wife of many years, when he announced that he was going to have a sex change. When asked why after all these years, his answer was: ” I am sick and tied of lying to myself, my family and city. Two days later, the City Council voted unanimously to remove him from office.

Again, the Public loves people who make decisions, for better or worst. Here in our own backyard, the Southern Sudan, Reik Gai Kok, a pharmacologist, whom I befriended for many years, and who recruited me to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, and sought my judgment in choosing his soul mate, almost brought me to tears when he declared at a press conference along side Amr Musa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, that ” South Sudan is part and parcel of Arab and Islamic Nation”. Disappointingly, I respected his opinion then. The same goes to the position taken by Dr. Lam Akol, Sudan’s Foreign Minister and his handpicked Ambassador to the United States, John Akec Lueth. It would save the people of South Sudan any unwanted attention by easily switching political affiliation to the National Congress Party (NCP).

The provocative remarks uttered by the Ambassador regarding the issues of Darfur and the newly imposed US sanctions against Sudan would have had less political backlash had he been an NCP member. Perhaps their bold stand might resonate within their constituencies and they might be forgiven.

It is “the Leadership” that the people of South Sudan needs desperately. A decisive Leadership that does not hesitates in matters of national interest. After all, our faith as a Christian calls us to forgive and forget: .Our beloved Southern Sudanese people are desperate looking for those servant leaders and are willing, willing to pay to get them.

* Luke K. Dak is a former Radio Juba Anchorman residing in the USA and can be reach at: [email protected]