Dr Peter Adwok Nyaba’s Evasiveness Will not Help

Editor: Dr. Adwok Nyaba's article is attached at the end of this article!

Dr Peter Adwok Nyaba's response to my response to him left a lot to be desired. "Soliloquy" is the wrong word to use, as I am addressing an open forum and not talking to myself, I think Dr Adwok is still ensnared by those days of the late Adieng Papiti who, in 1964, first publicized the use of the word among Collo students.

I still remember vividly how in those days we were competing in memorizing "Gwatemalo's Soliloquy". Is that nostalgia? This is the wrong place, Gindwong!

Dr Peter Adwok tried to avoid answering the issues I addressed that came in his article on SouthSudanNation.com on 9/7/2010. I do not want to be dragged into discussing the new issues he has now raised because that will detract us from the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter is that you, Dr Adwok, wrote that piece in which you touched on my personality and I responded accordingly. My response to this last article by Dr Peter Adwok will only be confined to points that have relevance to his original article and my response thereto. I will summarize my contribution in points:

1. Dr Peter Adwok tried to deny his authorship of the article. The article I was responding to was published in SouthSudanNation.com dated 9/7/2010 and published in "The Citizen Newspaper" of 28/7/2010. It begins thus: "Dr Peter Adwok Otto, my namesake by two-thirds, who..." and ends with the sentence "The SPLM-DC is undergoing de-legitimization and may soon be outlawed in Southern Sudan." With his name and e-mail address included. Was that article written by you, Dr Peter Adwok, or not? This is the article I was responding to. If the moderator of the website says it was not written by you, I am ready to apologize in public and on this forum. Yet, I the facts above point that it was you who wrote it and my comments are in place.

2. Dr Adwok who is striving to deny pedaling falsehood starts his article with one. He claims that I was writing under fictitious names and came out bluntly that it was me who wrote the article he mentioned. The problem with Adwok is that he does not tolearate criticism and believes anybody who mentions anything good about Dr Lam Akol must be Lam Akol himself!! Michael Deng, Mojwok Deng, etc are Lam Akol and Dr Okuk and Okuc P. Awol are "faithful runners" to him. Do not be surprised soon if he calls the Shilluks in Diaspora who wrote recently to UN Secretary General on what is happening in Collo land names. This is paranoia nobody except Dr Peter Adwok can do anything about. These people are intellectuals in their own right and do need to "run" for anybody. When Dr Okuk was a PhD student you denied the fact, now that he is a PhD holder you do not want even to accord him his title as your article confirms. Let us be fair to each other. I think that you know very well that I have the courage to stand for my ideas and I do not need to hide from or behind anybody.

3. There were no "Chollo militia called SPLM-United..in 1997". The SPLM-United forces were recognized by the famous Fashoda Peace Agreement 1997 to stay separate and distinct from the Sudanese Armed Forces for the four-year interim period. They were not militia, they were not Chollo, and they were there as legitimate armed forces. It is this force that united with the SPLM/A in 2003. True to the agreement, the SPLM-United forces in Collo land never shot a bullet against the SPLA. To suggest that there was a split in the SPLM-United in 2003, as Dr Adwok alleges, is misleading to say the least. We know who engineered the burning of Collo land in 2004, and this is not the place to discuss it. The question that springs to mind is: Does history repeat itself?

4. If Dr Peter Adwok Nyaba has fallen out with the Political Bureau of the SPLM in 2010 on his nomination to be Governor, this does not deny the role he played since 2005 in misleading the SPLM leadership on delivering the Collo land to the SPLM I referred to in my article. I am not the one dragging the name of the Collo Sovereign into our political differences, it is you thriving on that. You said the following in the article you are now trying hard to deny, quote : " Some of these SPLM-DC officers, call them commanders, had wanted to start reconciliation talks through the auspices of the Reth. Why was this halted by Dr Lam who instead ordered them to attack the SPLA garrisoned in Padhang and Lul? " unquote. Who is now dragging the name of the Collo Sovereign in such a fabrication? The Collo know what you have been saying and still say about your closeness to the Reth. I cannot be petty to mention such talk here.

5. It is untruth for Dr Adwok to claim that I was "the architect of the infamous‘Garang boys or Garang's orphans'". This is absolute rubbish, and must be some of the cheap propaganda you and your chums were thrashing out to achieve some short-term objectives. I was on record, including in newspapers, stating that such a characterization was not only erroneous but unhistorical. In his lifetime, I stressed, Dr John Garang did not call anybody in the Movement by any name other than "comrade". Everybody, and there were sons and fathers, was a comrade.

6. Dr Adwok's additional problem, and a serious one for that matter, with me was that I did not stand with him in his quest to become Deputy Governor in Upper Nile State in 2005 and thereafter. It came out clearly in this article of his when he asked: "Whom did Dr Lam recommend for appointment as the Deputy Governor?" Political differences aside, I cannot in all honesty recommend him to such an office for I do not believe he can deliver. I thought the best place for him was Parliament because he can debate well. I may be wrong, but that was and still is my position. He went and told the Reth that I was against a Collo becoming a Deputy Governor. The office is not only for the Collo, but for all in Upper Nile State. Dok Jok Dok who was appointed Deputy Governor was asked by His Majesty on the matter. Yes, I did recommend Dok but did not appoint him. How many people that I recommended were not appointed? Many.

7. I cannot see the relationship between Dr Adwok not becoming Deputy Governor and the "lucrative Foreign Affairs Ministry?" I didn't know Foreign Affairs Ministry was lucrative. But this is beside the point. The point is that Governorship of Upper Nile State and Deputy Governor of Western Bahr El Ghazal State were given out during the negotiation between the SPLM advance team and the NCP. The SPLM team was led by Nhial Deng Nhial who is more qualified to tell the story. When we met in Juba as Administrative Supervisors in August, the ministries allotted to SPLM were already known, one of them was Foreign Affairs, and we were asked by the Chairman to nominate people against each of them. The information about the Governorship of Upper Nile State was announced to us by the Chairman in a meeting in his house in Khartoum. Where do I come in? You ask the Chairman and Nhial Deng Nhial.

I was aware of the propaganda nonsense, possibly spread by Dr Adwok and Co., that I gave out the Governorship of Upper Nile to NCP and specifically to Dak Duop Bishok. In a public rally in Malakal Stadium in 2006, in the presence of the Governor, I refuted this claim and said that if I had the power to appoint a Governor I would have brought somebody who agrees with me politically within the SPLM.

As I said from the beginning, I will confine myself to the matters that are related to my article. What remains to be ascertained is whether I was responding to the wrong article as Dr Peter Adwok assiduously suggests. If the one I was dealing with is his, then he has not shown where I went wrong in correcting the falsehood that came in his first article. I can assure Dr Adwok that I harbour no hatred towards him, least of all "intense fear" of him. I have never ever attacked his personality in public fora. As the readers would have noticed by now, I only react to what he puts in print.

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Dr. Lam Akol's soliloquy and the truth deficit

Dr. Peter Adwok Nyaba, SUDAN

JULY 28/2010, SSN; It's quite interesting that Dr. Lam Akol in his diatribe against my person has come out into the open. He disgustingly has been treating us to fictitious names: Michael Deng, Mojwok Deng, etc. However, by attributing "Can the GOSS ban the SPLM-DC in Southern Sudan?" he started on a wrong footing or was he hallucinating?

It was one of his runners called Okuch P Awol who recently authored that piece on www.southsudannation.com recently. Dr. Lam Akol must be referring to my response to Dr. Peter Adwok Otto's piece entitled, "Scourged earth war on the Chollo people by SPLA", published initially on the www.pachodo.org but was latter on published by www.southsudannation.com after its editor hesitated to publish my response entitled "Dr. Peter Adwok Otto: scourged earth war on the Chollo people - a legitimate response."

If Dr. Lam's rebuttal of, and attack on me was invoked by this than I stand by what I said that "the SPLM-DC is undergoing self de-legitimization and may soon be outlawed in Southern Sudan." Gone are the days when Dr. Lam Akol operated his Chollo militia called SPLM-United while Minister of Transport in Khartoum following the infamous Fashoda Agreement 1997.

Reading through Dr. Lam Akol's piece, "Dr. Peter Adwok thrives on falsehood," published in nearly all the South Sudanese electronic pages, broadcasted by email to individual by Dr. Lam's obedient runner, James Okuki Solomon, and published yesterday by The Citizen Newspaper; I failed to find anything that could be categorized as falsehood.

What I found was Dr. Lam Akol reflected in his own writing. I understand Dr. Lam Akol very well; his coming out in the open like big snakes when they sense a coming earthquake means that my response to Dr. Peter Adwok Otto must have romped his sensitive underbelly.

It is similar to when he vomited clean his stomach with minute details in a response on www.southsudannation.com on July 21st entitled, "The audacity of a nonentity: Dengdit Ayok has gone too far on Dr. Lam Akol," which he authored under the guise of Michael Deng. Behaving in this manner Dr. Lam Akol believes that others can't see him; it is he who is blind to the people very near to him. Something deep seated must be haunting wad Akol.

It seems Dr. Lam Akol is fighting some invisible people through me. He should have had the courage and the audacity of his blind runner, James Okuki Solomon. The Chollo members of the SPLM are countable and he consistently has been nagging that Mr. Pagan Amum and myself were against his return to the SPLM after his humiliation by his SPLM/A-United officers in September 2003.

Dr. Lam Akol may recall the meeting we [himself, Pagan and Oyay Deng] held in Heron Court Hotel in Nairobi on November 3rd 2003. Some close friends wanted Dr. Lam to come back to the SPLM/A with political and military clout and therefore must be reunited with his men in the SPLM/A-United. I did not approve of the plan and therefore called the meeting to convince Dr. Lam Akol not to return to the Chollo Kingdom lest it caused a disruption.

Pagan and Oyay got convinced and supported Lam's return immediately at the heels of the SPLA delegation that went to start the integration process. The result was the conflict and the burning of the Chollo Kingdom by Dr. Lam Akol's militia allies who felt betrayed when he re-joined the SPLM/A.

It is worth mentioning that after falling out with Justice and Equality Party, Dr. Lam Akol participated in the NCP-sponsored Oxford Conference where the alliance with the militia groups was consummated.

"Dr. Peter Adwok and some misguided Chollo fellows in the SPLM took it upon themselves since 2003 to see that Dr. Lam Akol should be out of the party." Who are these misguided Chollo fellows? Is Dr. Lam Akol referring to Pagan Amum and Oyay Deng Ajak? I believe this is witch hunting.

In April 2004, in the wake of the burning of the Chollo Kingdom at the hands of the GOS militias, Dr. Lam Akol requested Cdr. Oyay Deng to call us [Pagan Amum and I] to a meeting in a friend's house (I don't want to mention his name) to discuss the situation in the Chollo Kingdom.

Dr. Lam to our surprise had invited some mutual friends hailing from a neighboring community (their names also withheld) whom Dr. Lam said had informed him that we [Pagan, Yor Odhok and I] were against his return to the SPLM. Our mutual friends were embarrassed that they have been involved in gossips which could not be substantiated.

I remember very vividly what I told the meeting that "no one even if she/he had power can stop Dr. Lam from joining the SPLM/A. It was his right and duty to participate but as for the position Dr. Lam would hold in the leadership hierarchy none of us present can posit him".

The truth of matter is that Dr. Lam Akol believed then and still believes now that he is the only Chollo qualified for leadership, or to be the highest ranking SPLM/A officer. This attitude must have been informed and enforced by Garang's decision in 1986 to appoint Dr. Lam Akol alternate member of the SPLM/A without formal military training over and above the heads of the Chollo officers then in the SPLM/A.

Thus when Dr. Lam came back into the SPLM/A in 2003, he couldn't stomach that Cdr. Pagan Amum was already in the SPLM/A Leadership Council. Dr. John Garang compounded Dr. Lam's agony by placing him next to the last position (No. 15) in the SPLM hierarchy. That Dr. Riek Machar was the third in the SPLM/A hierarchy when he was the fifteenth tormented to death Dr. Lam Akol.

It took us (late Dr. Kunijwok, Dr. Chang-Jwok and I) several meetings to accept the position in the SPLM Leadership Council lest the people develop a negative view about his intention to come back into the SPLM fold in particular considering his role in the Nasir debacle and the collaboration with the NIF regime.

So where is the substance that I and others were against his return to the SPLM/A? I leave this to the reader. Nobody has the power to prevent Dr. Lam Akol from being in the SPLM; but as to what position in the SPLM Leadership Council he would be placed that was the prerogative of the SPLM Chairman.

It couldn't have been my function or any of the Chollo group in the SPLM. It is this misconception on the part of Dr. Lam Akol which is the source of all his troubles in and out of the SPLM until he left it in 2009 to form his party.

It was his quest for leadership position that drove him into writing a very long letter to Cdr. Salva Kiir Mayardit then the SPLM Deputy Chairman ostensibly on account of being counterpart to the agreement of October 31st, 2003 vide which Dr. Lam rejoined the SPLM, complaining that he had been marginalized by Dr. Garang.

No sooner was Dr. Lam Akol on the Yei crisis van wagon. Thank God the crisis didn't take the Nasir pattern he engineered and were resolved amicably in Rumbek at the end of 2004.

Dr. Lam accuses me and others of having misled the SPLM into believing that we would deliver the Chollo come the General Elections. He should be reminded that I was at odds with the SPLM Political Bureau and decided to nominate myself an independent candidate for the governorship of Upper Nile. So when did I mislead the SPLM leadership or was this hallucination?

This is now Dr. Lam Akol lying to himself even shamelessly dragging the name of the Chollo sovereign into political difference between the two of us.

I am yet to come across the falsehood Dr. Lam believes I am thriving on. In all my writings I have always referred to Dr. Lam's fiery ambitions and thirst for power which has fitted him against all and sunder with whom he had political transaction from late Garang, Riek Machar, Peter Sule, Gatduel Gatluak, James Othow, Akwoch Jago, Beshir, Benani and Salva Kiir.

In all these alliances and their breakups many of Dr. Lam's followers fell victims including sacrificing their lives. At the end of all these political adventures Dr. Lam comes out unscathed or unperturbed, always projecting himself as angel and the others as the villains; notwithstanding that retraces his steps back into the organization he had abandoned e.g. the SPLM (2003) and the NCP (2005) through a mischievous alliance midwifed by his close personal friend in the National Security and Intelligence Service to destroy the SPLM.

It is this political instability, transmigration and machinations albeit aimed against the SPLM, its leadership and the people of Southern Sudan that prompted my critical stance against Dr. Lam Akol and in this I am not alone.

Dr. Lam's name is in many mouths and I believe not for honorable reasons. He has double-crossed, short-changed or double-talked many people - what many of his admirers call ‘intelligence' - that we are now witnessing the widespread desertion of the people he had ensnared into believing that the SPLM-DC had a change agenda.

I want to remind Dr. Lam Akol of his case against Al Sahafa Newspaper and Ustaz Hag Warraq over the label of ‘hired guns'. This is to prove my point that I don't have anything personal against Dr. Lam; I only opposed him for the unpatriotic positions he took since 1991 when we were together in the SPLM Nasir faction.

So all the innuendos that I am driven by hatred of Dr. Lam can be proved to be false; on the contrary it's Lam who harbors intense fear and hatred against me.

His faithful runner, James Okuki Solomon, has been on the websites vilifying me in the context of the on-going crisis in the Chollo Kingdom. What goes around comes back.

Who stood against my nomination for Governor of Upper Nile in 2005? Who offered Upper Nile to NCP in return for the lucrative Foreign Ministry portfolio? Whom did Dr. Lam recommend for appointment as the deputy Governor?

Dr. Lam Akol was one of the six influential SPLM leaders around the leadership of Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, following the tragic death of Dr. John Garang, between August 2005 and October 2007. Was it by accident or malice of anybody that he lost his political glow?

No, it was his own making and indeed Dr. Lam defended his position saying that ‘in the foreign ministry he implemented the policy of the state not that of the SPLM'. Why is looking for scapegoats or easy targets?

What did Dr. Lam Akol do when he was still powerful and influential in the SPLM? He was the architect of the infamous ‘Garang's boys or Garang's orphans,' which he projected on those SPLM lieutenants then very closed to Dr. Garang. The campaign against the Garang's boys resulted in some comrades throwing in the towel.

Many people don't know because I did not involve in cheap publicity of my predicament. I always believed that no situation would remain the same; it is bound to change and for that reason I took with ease any adverse condition that fell on me. Being in or out of power position has not been a worrisome thing to me and that is why I have little problems with others.

Dr. Lam wants always to be in the centre of things small or big and that constitutes his basic problem and contradiction with people except the willfully blind and deaf like James Okuk Solomon.

In conclusion, I don't care if I am not taken seriously by colleagues in the party on account of being outspoken and critical. This is my nature just like when he is so greedy, rigid and abrasive leadership style which explains his excessive migration and oscillation from one political position to another to another and then back to the original position.

My advice to those who blindly follow Dr. Lam Akol believing that, what he says is true, will sooner than later get the shock of their lives when he himself without warning deserts them. END

Dr. Peter Adwok Nyaba at email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.