My First Ten Dreams To Get The Country Moving "Nationalist leadership and all positions under it should come to terms with the reality that the Citizen is King – and always will be whether you come to power by election, coup, or tricky extensions of terms." 10 August 2016
By Dr Alfred Lokuji The most urgent considerations to get the country moving - my first ten dreams - the first two about mindsets! Dream No. 1: Changing the Mindset of Leadership & Public Service: The church has been more explicit about the psychology of hope – which it sees as a virtue! By the same token, the loss of hope, prompted by the loss of faith, leads to despair – giving up; surrendering; preferring to drown rather than swim. The South Sudanese citizen has been immersed within circumstances that could logically lead to despair, fatalism! This mind-set needs to be altered. Leadership in the service of the nation should primarily mean preventing the citizen from despairing! This is not going to happen if positions of leadership continue to be viewed as un-vetted entitlements, as rights to luxury above and beyond the ordinary. More explicitly, being in a position of responsibility does not, and should never, mean sanitized robbery: salaries, allowances, vehicles, free medical, houses with utilities – amounting to monumental equivalents for the care of at least 50 citizens per month. You will lose your mind trying to understand why the Government of South Sudan provides officials with a V-8; or comprehend how and why such a decision was made in the first place. Being self-acclaimed revolutionaries, one would have expected to see the likes of County Commissioners criss-crossing their counties in open air military-style jeeps. Offices are littered with impediments to proper work –resembling the living-room of an upper class family: sofa sets, refrigerator, side tables, and TV set with cable (satellite) television services! Not forgetting the tea tray that hardly dries up in the course of the day! What on earth is the daily “productivity” in that office? Admittedly, there is the usual fully loaded lap-top or desk-top but what work is done on it is anyone’s guess – that’s why everybody is a “Beny” or a “Zol Kebir”! The mind-set that says “I am here!” or “Do you know who I am” – or even “amul hisabak” must simply change if leadership, across all ranks is to be calculated in hours of work in the service of the citizen in the various sectors of public life. Today’s leader, along with all his civil servants and servicemen in the various forces are NOT the equivalent of the colonial officer whose home was thousands of miles away – and he was here to control these natives in the name of Her Majesty’s government. He was therefore entitled to “home leave”, “hardship allowance” – name it – in recognition of his being far away from home. Nationalist leadership and all positions under it should come to terms with the reality that the Citizen is King – and always will be whether you come to power by election, coup, or tricky extensions of terms. The citizen must be King – that should be the new progressive mind-set and motto! Posted in: Opinions - See more at: http://gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid/124/ID/19751/Default.aspx#sthash.u1z1s7oz.dpuf -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14op7hHwbbhxqmsJPhj2wk-1GFMyHJahn37wyMBXugb6wYA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
