Nov 24, 2020(Nyamilepedia) – Responding to President Salva Kiir’s threatening demands for guarantorship on appointment of Lt. Gen. Johnson Olony, the SPLM/A in Opposition has fired back denouncing the president’s preconditions.
The SPLM-IO representative to the National Constitution Amendment Committee (NCAC), Dr. Nathaniel Oyet Pierino, said that the opposition is not willing to commit to any guarantees for the appointment of Gen Johnson Olony as the Governor of Upper Nile state.
According to the SPLM/A-IO, there is no guarantor bigger than the peace agreement itself unless if the president is trying to jump the gun by refusing to implement the peace agreement.
The senior SPLM-IO said that his group will not submit any written document as demanded by the president over the appointment of Gen. John Olony.
“The responsibility of appointment rests with the president but our nomination still stands and there was some consensus to appoint Olony but the president gave some conditions. He said he wants guarantees and we do not understand where it is coming from. Are there any guarantees stronger than the agreement?” Oyet posed.
Nathaniel Oyet further said that the opposition does not understand President Kiir’s intention.
“We don’t understand it and we really don’t know what is the meaning and the intention of it, we stick with bending and provision of the agreement which allocates responsibility sharing to individual parties and they will nominate their candidate.” Dr. Oyet said.
“We are bound by that there is no other undertaking that could be stronger than the provision in the agreement.” Nathaniel added.
He affirmed that the SPLM-IO is not going to do anything outside the agreement and president Kiir must respect that.
Nathaniel went on to say that Gen Olony has been a military commander under the SPLM/A-IO chairman and commander-in-chief for than six years, and therefore President Kiir’s logic does not holds.
“There is no further proof that we should show to indicate whether he has been in the SPLM/A-IO more than that,” Oyet said.
“He has sent his forces to containment and training under the agreement, some of his commanders are in Juba in the different security and political mechanisms under the agreement. We don’t know the intention and motivation of the president insisting that there should be undertaking, we don’t know,” he said.
Last week, the president said that he asked Machar to submit an undertaking in writing to guarantee his nomination of governor Olony as a member of the SPLM-IO and that he will not cause chaos in the state when appointed.
Upper Nile has been the only state without a governor after president Kiir refused to appoint Gen. Colony saying he is a warmonger.
According to critics, the president is playing to the tune of his Dinka minority in the region who are opposing the appointment of Gen. Olony that is demanded by the none-Dinka majority in the state.
