Warrap rebukes youth for petitioning governor over child neglect claims
November 12, 2014 (JUBA) – The government of South Sudan’s border state of Warrap, home to President Salva Kiir, issued a statement on Wednesday criticising youth and activists for petitioning governor Nyandeng Malek for child neglect, claiming the action was politically motivated.
Madoor linked the petition to the frustration felt by some youth who had failed to secure the election of their candidates of choice during the recent youth leadership race.
“I am taking this opportunity to officially refute the recent statements and calls in which some of the clique within [the] youth union who lost the elections decided to obnoxiously rush and propagate to all media houses that they have petitioned [the] honorable elected governor, madam Nyandeng Malek Dielic, on [this] social issue,” said Madoor.
“There is no connection of the claims in which they petitioned the governor because there is not any article in Warrap state constitution that deprives women of child-bearing age from assuming such important portfolios,” he said.
Madoor was reacting to statements in a petition by Warrap youth calling on the state governor to step down from public office over claims she neglected her newborn baby and was setting a “bad precedence” to other women in the country.
Malek, who has been on maternity leave in Kenya, gave birth to a baby boy less than four months ago.
She has been accused of abandoning the child after she returned to South Sudan late last month without her son.
Madoor said the damaging claims are clearly designed to discredit the governor and her reputation.
He has blamed politicians for dividing youth on the basis of where they live in the state rather than uniting them according to political ideology and desire to serve the country.
He said called on the state’s youth to disregard divisive political calls and instead take a lead role in promoting reconciliation and unity within their own communities.
“Our role as youth of this country is to see how best we could work alongside our leaders in the process of nation-building through promotion of local peace, reconciliation and to forge a unity of purpose within us,” he said.
“But, unfortunately all of us tend to view a politics as the only way of survival, whereas you find almost a quarter of state youth aspiring for scarce constitutional posts such as commissionership and state ministerial positions,” he added.
In a statement on Monday, activist Peter Mayen denied there was any political motive behind the petition, saying the governor’s decision to allegedly abandon her child in Nairobi contravenes the 2008 Child Act.
“Our concern is purely on the humanitarian ground and the right of the child,” he said.
“If we were asking why she is bearing [a child], then you would have had a point. We are saying she is a human and we therefore recognise her right to bear a child, but our concern now is the right of that small baby,” he added.
Critics of the state governor have taken to social media and online forums to call for her immediate resignation, saying it was morally unacceptable to abandon a newborn baby at such a critical time in a child’s development.
Supporters of the governor and cabinet ministers have described the governor’s decision as a private matter.
(ST)
– Warrap state governor implicated in child neglect allegations