Opinion: The national youth union is not a personal briefcase of Mr. Gola Boyoi

May 21, 2020 Opinions

By Gattiek Gatkuoth Wichar

Gattiek Gatkuoth Wichar (Photo courtesy of the author)

May 21, 2020 (SSNN) – It is this evening when I came across a document written by Mr.Tarir Makoi, a spokesperson for South Sudan National Youth Union (SSNYU), informing the public that the national youth organization had issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Meen Gabriel Chol Kuac whose criticism went viral against Mr. President of the Youth Union
Mr. Gola Boyoi and his political staunch Mr. Tarir Makoi who’s also the mouthpiece of the body at the same time over alleged embezzlement of public funds.

I am not here to confirm to the public that the alleged scandal in the higher level of the youth leadership is true since I don’t have any material evidence at my disposal. But I am agitated and forced to write this piece to express my views that I derived from the legal perspective as youth who is very concerned for the integrity and wellbeing of this noble Union because I am not satisfied with the fact that our Union is operating under illusion of administration.

The issuance of an arrest warrant against Mr. Meen Gabriel Chol legally premature. I believe there are no concrete grounds to arrest a youth member for criticising or exposing financial scandal by the higher leadership of the Union. Also, who knows, he may be sure of the corruptionm practice by the President of youth Union Mr. Gola Boyoi and his active Secretary Mr.Tarir Makoi.

Below are the reasons why I decided to criticize the arrest:-

1 – South Sudan National Youth Union is not personal briefcase of Mr. Gola Boyoi and as institution it has no connection with that arrest warrant that is written on her behalf as per Law because the accused are only Mr. Gola Boyoi and his close confidant Mr. Tarir Makoi with the exception of other executive members working with them in the Union, the fact that they run the National youth Union as briefcase doesn’t qualify them to abuse the power of the institution by scapegoating their personal makings and push them on as burden to the Union. I don’t refute the fact that they have no rights to file any litigation against any person who accuse them with false allegations but it’s not legal to arrest person using the name of the Union since Union has no enemies and what was accused of embezzlement of public funds wasn’t an entity but some individuals.

2 – The arrest warrant would have been lawful and credible in case all executive members working at office of the National Youth Union were accused of the mismanagement of the public treasures but Mr. Meen Gabriel Chol was very clear as i had passed through his article,he didn’t generalise all members but only Mr.Youth leader and his close associates. So in this regard there’s no point where two to three members within the office could file the case bearing the name of the Youth Union that includes multitude and if it happened like that what would be the fate of the other innocent members working within the office of the National Youth Union with them incase the alleged embezzlement turns to be true.

3 – The legitimacy of Mr. President of South Sudan National Youth Union mr. Gola Boyoi is in coma since his nomination by default wasn’t popular, the leadership whose legitimacy doesn’t exist is likely to face the repercussions of its illegal operation and it fosters fertile ground for many critics to relief their collective stress on it every single day and for this reason the leadership shouldn’t talk about issues related to legality when in fact it’s operating under illusional system of law.

Lastly but not least, I would like to remind all South Sudanese people out there specially youth of this great Nation not to accept that unlawful act of this illegitimate leadership of this Union since the incumbent president is a defacto as many of you knows since day one so they don’t have legal jurisdictions to arrest any youth who fights for the total transformation of the entity when they are infact operating under defacto leadership. It’s in the democratic society where people are allowed to exercise their rights to freedoms such as freedom of criticism as long as it’s constructive criticism that are meant to question the scandalous practices. When the Anti-corruption commission decided to get rid of corruption in Singapore they started it by punishing the top officials not from bottom, therefore as youth of this great Nation we will speak up all the times we can’t be intimidated by youth leader by issuing illegal arrest warrants as mean of defending his personal faults. We cannot buy that practice.

The author is a concerned youth of South Sudan. He can be reached via: gattiekwichar@gmail.com

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