July 20th 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – A South Sudanese lawmaker allied to the country’s First Vice-President Taban Deng Gai has criticized the government decision to either create more states or remains with the current 32.
Paul Bor Gatwech, Chief Whip of the SPLM-IO faction led by the FVP Taban at the Transitional National Legislature Assembly (TNLA) said he is against the creation of more states with the government using the narrative that it is heeding to demand of the people of South Sudan.
Gatwech argued that the division of the country into several tribal enclaves make a recipe for future tribal conflict saying the government is sowing the seed of hatred between South Sudan’s tribes.
“I am against creation of more states as a policy of the government to satisfy demand of the people to divide themselves into sectional or tribal enclaves,” Gatwech wrote on his social media page.
“I see that with encouragement of such policy, the government in the long run is sowing seed of tribalism and further fragmentation of the country,” he added.
Gatwech further questioned the government’s motive behind the establishment of the 32 states arguing the country is underdeveloped even at the national level because the government is unable to.
“What is the motive behind every clan or section or tribe to want to be alone? We have not even succeeded yet in building our newly secured big house South Sudan– Look at how it ended up in the originally mighty monolithic patriarchal and once communist We need to build Juba first to world standard, then Wau and Malakal before we depart for our villages at this time,” he said.
