Equatorian governors are like hawkers, says SPLM-IO official
May 20, 2015 (ADDIS ABABA) – A senior official of the rebel faction of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) has likened to “hawkers” governors representing the three states of greater Equatoria region in South Sudan, saying they had been advertising for president Salva Kiir at the expense of their own people.
Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, chairman of national committee for political mobilization in the SPLM-IO faction led by former vice president, Riek Machar, said Equatorians were determined to remove president Kiir from power.
“We hereby affirm our oath to remove the entire regime of Kiir and its auxiliaries at the states by all means,” Pierino said in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.
The former head of political science department in the University of Juba, who himself an Equatorian from Eastern Equatoria state, was reacting to ongoing engagements between Equatorians in opposition and the governors of Eastern, Central and Western Equatoria states.
Greater Equatoria governors including Clement Wani Konga of Central Equatoria, Louis Lobong Lojore of Eastern Equatoria and Joseph Bakasoro of Western Equatoria have been consulting with SPLM-IO Equatorian officials in various occasions including in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, last month.
Pierino said the engagement was meant to strike areas of agreement in the ongoing peace process, but said he was surprised with ?behaviors of the governors who “pretended to be representing citizens from Equatoria region yet they are chasing bread and butter.”
“They [governors] behave like hawker trying to sell Salva Kiir government and yet for us we are non-buyers,” he said.
He further accused the government officials of promoting tribalism and regionalism by asking Equatorians in the SPLM-IO to pull out from the movement and yet they were in Salva Kiir’s government led by a non-Equatorian.
He added that for the governors to claim that Equatorians in the movement should pullout is “outrageously parochial and a red line.”
The only positive outcome from this engagement, he explained, was the fact that Equatorians in the opposition faction had now known that the “so-called” governors were for status quo.
He accused them of allegedly abandoning call for federalism and reforms which Equatorians have been calling since 2010, saying they have therefore lost legitimacy and trust among Equatorians.
(ST)