Grow up, we are sick of your quarrels

September 1st, 2008 (Netherlands) - “You can have people go but the system should remain,“ saaid Her Excellency the Minister Awut Deng Acuil. Which system are our leaders intending to establish? A system of chaos? Or a real system that may be build upon? It has occurred more than once that key leaders of South Sudan fought and fight baseless accusations and war of words in public as if there is no important job to do. The question that keeps alarming is whether the people of Southern Sudan will keep listening now and then about your neighbours-women quarrelling and hope that their leaders one day shall get grown up and address the issue that needs urgent solution? 

I wonder whether my ministers have ever heard about the so called cabinet homogeneity?
I am 110% convince that my leaders know or have come across word “homogeneity.”
But as a matter of fact I would like to elaborate what does this word means. 

What is homogeneity? Homogeneity in general means being the same throughout.
Coming to political homogeneity means working together as a team. That comes down to a fact that a cabinet has to work as a team, so as to preserve political homogeneity or oneness in face of public. Even if differences arise, these are resolved within the meetings and are not let known to the public. That accounts for the working due to the absence of this element in the working of a coalition government, parliamentary system gets a set-back. It is a divergent type of elements belonging to different parties which are included in one cabinet. The government or cabinet which is now ruling the South is a coalition of different parties. 

Your Excellency the minister Awut Deng, this case should have not went public. Above all that, it is not a case to be solved by Parliament. This case concerns the Cabinet and should be solve by the Cabinet itself. You have your president and his vice. They have no other work than to make sure that the Cabinet is running its policies accordingly and accurately.

To my very limited knowledge, you should have raised this issue as early as you detected the case.

Your Excellency, exchanging words with each other as ministers will bring no good to our struggling people. Please get yourself out of that and do something  positive. You are aware that there are a lot of things which are more of importance than accusing your counterpart. I am not hereby saying that you should close your eyes for the wrongs doing of your colleagues, however I prefer that you tackle such wrong things within the Cabinet rooms. Remember your Excellency the minister, dispute  within the Cabinet that just went public poisons the nation as dispute between the parents that are known to the children poisons the children. You are a mother yourself and I swear that you never find it correct to fight as parent in presence of children. The reason is that you don’t want the children to know the bad part of your living. So does the Nation Mom. Mothering Nation is much more complicated than mothering your own kids.  

*Kon Kelei is a masters student of International & European Law.
He can be reached at jokoke@gmail.com