Importance of Federalism for Peace Process and Nation-Building in South Sudan

Leaders Conversation on Federalism in South Sudan

3-4 December, 2018.

Juba, Republic of South Sudan.

By Hon. Oyet Nathaniel Pierino,

• H.E. Taban Deng Gai,First Vice President of the Republic of South Sudan;
• Amb. Prof. Bisswaro Joram, African Union Respresentative to South Sudan, 
• Amb.Dr. Ismail Wais, IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan, and the Mediator of the R-ARCSS; 4.Hon. Timothy Tot Chol, Deputy speaker of TNLA
• Hon. Ministers of the TGoNU, Republic of South Sudan and the Hon. Members of TNL
• Your Excellencies, Members of Diplomatic Corps; and friends of South Sudan;
• Members of Faith Based Groups, Academia and Civil Society Organization Representatives; 8. Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning?

Dec 4, 2018(SSNN) — Allow me to extend to you sincere compliments from the leadership of the SPLM/AIO, and Chairman of SPLMAIO and The First Vice President (designate); Dr. Riek Machar Teny, who expressed his gratitude for inviting representative from the SPLMAIO to today’s function.

Distinguished participants, Ladies and gentlemen the quest for Federalism in South Sudan has a very long history. It functuated the larger part of our written history. It inspired many nationalists struggles including the struggle which culminated into the exercise of the right to self-determination for the people of South Sudan on 9th January, 2011 and eventually independence on the 9th July, 2011.

The history of struggle of the Sudanese and South Sudanese for that matter has been littered with Centralist-peripheral bitter confrontations. Centralist regimes have always attempted to unilaterally turn a country with very rich diversities into a monolithic nation which led to bitter confrontations between Northern and Southern Sudan as well as other parts of the Sudan. The relationship between the centralists elite and peripheralists masses have been often described as those who controlled the center do so by exploitating, marginalizing, excluding and discriminating against other section of the population of the country hence a justification for resentment and struggle. The whole of this episode points to one Critical aspect of the society! “A ceaseless desire by a body of people to be masters and beneficiaries of their own affairs and destiny”.

Dr. Nathaniel Pierino, governor of Imatong State sits next to Tor Tungwar Kueigwong during an SPLM/A(IO) briefing in Khartoum(Photo credit: SSNN)

The idea of Federalism has come a long way, it has survived all historical hazards. To South Sudanese, federalism is not a choice anymore, it is a necessity for the people of South Sudan to achieve peace through embracing peaceful co-existence and equality. It is incumbent on any government to make a paradigm shift in the country, and in the government and politics of South Sudan. The state system in South Sudan should be re-structured to reflect this popular demand of the people. The price of confrontation between the centralist elite and the poor masses of our people predominantly rural based or in the periphery should be averted today or in future. We must Constitutionally and practically divide power and wealth to enable us create self-governance status in states and local governments where citizens can directly participate in the governance of their country and look after their quality of life.

It is for this reason and many that I invite you to agree with the Theme of this conference and particularly join me in stressing the “Importance of Federalism in the ongoing Peace Process and Nation-Building in South Sudan”.

Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen; federalism should not be misunderstood! Federalism is not Kokora; some communities understand it as a war of this region against the other, and therefore must be resisted; it is not creating more administrative units in a country or giving every nationality a piece of land, it is not operationalisation of regionalism in South Sudan. Federalism is much more. The danger of misconceiving federalism is that it leads to confusion, anarchy and creation of conflicting loyalties in one country. If the boundaries of unit states for instance coincide with the boundaries of ethnic, tribal, linguistic communities what impact would that have on nation-building? Where will citizens attach their loyalties? To the Union or to their tribal entities? In the event that citizens attached loyalties to their ethnic, tribal or linguistic cleavages, in times of conflict the the state falls apart.

Today ethnic, tribal, regional and linguistic cleavages defines our social, political and economic relationships in South Sudan. People say we are better than them! It is us against them; GreaterEquatoria,GreaterUpperNile,GreaterBarElGazel,etceverycommunitywants to be referred to as greater; it is our chance! Even the private sector is not exception. The employment pattern in the NGO world is horrible; you find this organization is composed of this tribe or that. This including in the UN agencies. There is no saint! These diversities being used negatively and in the absence of political super-structures to moderate them, political violence, strives and civil wars is inevitable.

Federalism is an ideology, it is a system of governance. It has its normative principles, laws, practices and institutional design. Federalism attempts to mitigate governance crisis in a political system with overwhelming multi-fetched diversities. It is the coming together of human beings who recognize and appreciate the importance of their diversities to establish a body politik that reaffirm their fundamental equality and human rights. With federalism, minorities and majorities shall amicably and voluntarily live side by side without recourse to political strife and violence, the National government and the state government with their respective competencies shall divide power and resources and yet viably exists within the same union.

Under Federalism, the fundamental human rights and freedom of citizens as well as their welfare is protected and promoted by more than one tiers of government; the Federal, state and local government level of government. It is unlikely that power shall be abused when it is divided among the center, states and local government. There shall be horizontal (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and vertical (Federal, State and local government checks and balances of power.

The discourse on federalism is like the story of (03) three little brothers in a family fighting over a loaf of bread one morning, little did they know that the same bread can be divided into (03) three and each will get satisfied.

Towards Full Adoption of Federal System of Governce in South Sudan:

1. The ongoing political process is step in the right direction. The SPLMAIO in 2014 launched a formal program of implementing federalism in South Sudan and made sure that The 2015 ARCSS contained provisions that was leading to full operationalisation of federalism. Though that agreement couldn’t hold, nevertheless the agreement created a ministry of Federal Affairs to oversee this political program.
2. The R-ARCSS, 2018, retained and contains provisions that calls for enactment of Federal system of government in South Sudan during the transitional period. The peace agreement specifically under Article 1.4.11 calls for enactment of Federal System of Governance during the transitional period and maintained the ministry of Federal Affairs under Article 1.10.2.11. The same R-ARCSS devoted a whole Chapter (6) Six of the Agreement to a permanent constitution making process leading to adoption of federalism as a System of governance.
3. The report of the National Dialogue read together with the reports of the Steering Committee of the National Dialogue in the strongest term possible call for expeditious adoption of Federalism as a System of governance in South Sudan. This among other observations was recommended as a solution to the fragility in South Sudan.
4. This is how far we have come it’s and an achievement by the people and for the people of South Sudan.

Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, I once more thank the organizers of this leaders Dialogue on Federalism and I thank you for your audience.

Hon. Oyet Nathaniel Pierino(PhD) is the SPLM/A(IO) governor of Imatong State. He can be reached for more information at oyetnathaniel22@gmail.com.

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