Why South Sudan must revert to unitary system opposed to federalism
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By Isaiah Abraham
March 7, 2012 — The Republic of South Sudan (RSS) like any other newly
created country in any other part of the world is grappling as to what
system of governance to adapt and why. Since its independence few
months ago, the country has formed a constitutional writing body. A
highly touted team headed by a law professor has wasted no time, but
embarked on a mission of soliciting ideas internally and from
different part of globe. Couples of days ago, a renowned Kenyan
professor (Professor Yal Phal Ghai) well vested in this field had
lectured to the Committee Members about challenges facing the process
and tips on what they should be doing in there.
There has been some furor of activities and wild schedules by the same
team; however, people have started to raise questions as to why the
team has kept this important exercise in secrecy. There is no forums
for the public to debate things more constructively.
There is what is known here as Transitional Constitution of the
Republic South Sudan in which ashes people are trying to either build
from it or do away with it altogether. The problem again in this part
of the world, the employer has shown more than once that everything
must be done on his/their dictating terms, a worrying trend indeed.
Generally, the ruling party in the South will love to have its
interests written more expansively on the expense of objectivity or
what doesn’t work.
Someone must allow us to play on the level ground. We must be players
in this constitution if we truly plan to have a meaningful country
where each of our members shall feel part of the whole. The
constitution this country wants must be inclusive, participatory and
democratic, unless we build on a document that shall be a source of an
ending crisis. Bad legal matters are proven deadly. Some countries in
fact keep on amending their constitutions every time, to accommodate
new realities facing them. In our context we got to do away with some
poor jurisprudence foundation, they will never helped matters but
worsen our socio-economic and political situations.
Given experiences from our situation in the past seven years, we must
pause and see whether there is a need to continue with our presence
laws or expunge some flawed clauses in their total or in pieces. The
latter should be the way forward. People aren’t prepare to have
another trouble political circumstance where issues to do with
stability, peace, development and unity are endangered. In my best
judgement, the Transitional Constitution isn’t that entirely bad; the
issue is the unsettled status of unitary or federal arrangements in
our system.
Somewhere we find our system favouring federalism or whatever we are
using now, and at some point, this is where we have unknowingly or
knowingly mess things up. We must jump out from the fire before things
become nasty. I see our current federalism fragile and source of
crisis and this is how: federalism yeah could be good due to its
relevance to specific needs of the local people, and it encourages
creativity and innovation. But the same system (Federalism) is found
out to be complicated and confused, expensive, duplicative, and anti
unity. Sometime under federalism, corruption is difficult to detect as
there are many layers of governments. It doesn’t eliminate poverty.
On the big matters of unity and harmony, federalism puts things
asunder. In Juba few days ago, over six people were killed over land
disputes, and the killer (s) is/are at large. The reason being that
the security forces were inclined, partial and indifference. Different
security agencies at different levels couldn’t handle things in this
situation and there a security embarrassment and fiasco!
Our people need to bond together and unfortunately this is not the
case at the moment. We are building a false and fluid system where
efforts are virtually wasted with regions stubbornly ganging up
against the central government. About development, nothing can help an
ordinary Southerner at the remote villages due to too much
bureaucracy. I have seen some states as countries within a country,
with nothing to connect them to the central government. Central
Equatoria State is a case in point, where the government operates
independently as if this state is not legally binds to the national
government. They have funny laws, and in due time, they will throw
surprises. In fact no proper scrutiny of legal jargons from states
constitutions or by laws.
Upper Nile and Western Bahr El Ghazal governors have approached
(entered in fact) into international arrangement/agreements with some
foreign governments with little or no knowledge to the Central
Government in Juba. The former was in Ethiopia and then China and
inked some deals there, while Governor Rizig Zechariah Hassan was in
Singapore last year with ambitious projects that should have been
undertaken by the national government. Why do you make of these
adventures.
Socially we down and soon it is going to be very difficult to heal the
scars cause by social inbalance and strife. Southerners are now
classified by their states of origins and this wasn’t the case in 1972
during Uncle Joseph Lagu Yanga. Dr. John Garang meant well, though the
card of ‘people managing their lands’ was misinterpreted and abuse. I
thought it was a policy made to act as a deterrent to Arabs; why is it
that our current leadership hangs on this terrible and unstable
system? Isn’t the Nigeria federalism situation an alarm to make us
caution when applying federalism. What is in the minds of these people
who are craving for federalism, what do they want something the
central and unity government couldn’t do
Economically, federalism hurts poor states and most of the time, it
encourages unnecessary competition and selfishness. In another word,
it breeds inequality and we don’t want it happen in our land. Some
states are rich while others could be left behind. We must
distribution the national cakes equally to all irrespective of whether
the oil or what other national resource is discovered where.
Therefore, it is my little proposals that we return our system to
unitary, but keep counties under Districts Administration, so to run
away from many mouths of politicians the government must feed each
day. We need one another in development, and balance is missed at the
moment. Our unity is in jeopardy. Some states have high level of
skilled manpower while others is crying for brains, why not
discriminate Southerners during employment offers? Federalism is good
in rich countries, not in the poor countries such as ours.
Majority of world countries are unitary, except 25 among them the
United States of America, Canada, Australia, India, Mexico, Brazil
among others. Unitary is enduring, as it fosters great stability and
unity. I must repeat myself: federalism is a troubled infused system
where several local governments can cause more rivalry and problems to
the national government. It is good only when the society is educated
and wealthy. Law makers hence are asked to throw away federalism like
system in our land. They must help the people of South Sudan achieve
more.
In states headquarters, we can only have District Commissioners, civil
servants drawn from anywhere in our land due to their merits.
Districts will have their representatives in the National Assembly,
where issues can easily be tracked, and services provided with less
political complication. This is just one bad piece of the law or
governance arrangement this little author wants change, others are
also there.
Isaiah Abraham lives in Juba; he’s on [email protected]
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