Build The Country Before We Are Abandoned

By: Ogeryath Oger

South Sudan is a highly dependent country whose goods and services are provided by neighbouring countries which enables it to continue to breathe and function politically and economically. But this doesn't mean that South Sudan is an empty land with no resources at all. Over reliance on the neighbouring countries for essential goods and services is a result of low level of productivity and poor planning from the country's administration. Therefore we need to prepare South Sudan which can produce its own goods and services consumed by its own people. If we can achieve this type of economic independence, we shall then be able to take control of our own affairs without foreign or external interference.

However, we must be aware that economic independence alone may not save South Sudan from depending on international organizations or neighbouring countries. We must as well concentrate on improving the social welfare of our communities through provision of education, good health facilities and guidance to the children and the youths in the communities. Today South Sudan faces the challenges of inadequate medical facilities and proper schools. Through these challenges, the foreigners come in to give a hand in order to elevate the standards of living but at the end we tend to entirely keep them in charge of our country in terms of handling the health and education crisis. We must instead train and equip our own doctors and nurses with the necessary skills to manage the health hazards facing South Sudan other than keeping our trust in the outsiders or foreign organisations. Likewise the same ideas should be employed in the education sector by providing syllabus that trains the minds of the pupils and the students to know how to manage the affairs of their own country.

Our focus should be on the future of South Sudan in the years to come so that we may be able to avoid any form of colonization and dependence under the disguise of foreign assistance. It is important to start training our people to become great entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, nurses, businessmen and businesswomen, etc so that we may have confidence at the end if we are abandoned by the foreign powers in the years to come.

Imagine the situation that we recently faced when the foreign vehicles stopped supplying the essential goods to South Sudan because of the instability on Juba-Nimule road. The country was engulfed by unimaginable crisis which the South Sudan government couldn't solve by looking for alternative means of providing Juba with the scarse goods but at the end negotiations were to be carried out by the government to soften the hearts of the traders and provided them with confidence through provision of the security needed. This is the biggest challenge that we must inject our energies on because if we are to remain reluctant and dependent, one day our lives shall be under great threats.

It is time therefore for South Sudanese politicians to come together and shift their attention in building a South Sudan that can really accommodate its own people in a secure and promising environment. Though we have failed to live up to our own promises, we need to take courage and give ourselves the confidence needed to rebuild South Sudan starting deep from the roots. How wonderful is it to have a country whose people depend on their own government, products and people?

There are great minds in South Sudan that can elevate the status of the country politically, economically and socially to great heights but the division and selfishness together with hatred are holding the country back. We need to trust our own people to build a country that can exist not on the barrels of oil but on the skills of its own people.