Bakasoro rejects calls to step down from SSOA ministerial position after joining Kiir’s group

JUBA – South Sudan opposition leader Joseph Bangasi Bakosoro who dissolved his opposition group this week to join the ruling SPLM faction led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit has rejected calls for him to resign from the ministry of public service that belongs to South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA).

Bakasoro is the leader of South Sudan National Movement for Change (SSNMC) which is a founding member of South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) led by Josephine Lagu. The opposition consortium had been given three ministerial positions by the revitalized peace agreement on of which is the ministry of public service held by Bakasoro.

On Thursday, Bakasoro dissolved the South Sudan National Movement for Change and then declared the intention of his group to join the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement faction led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit after ten years.

Since then, opposition members have been calling on Bakasoro who has once served as governor of Western Equatoria state after leaving the ruling party in the backdrop of standing as an independent candidate following the official nomination of Jemma Nunu Kumba by the SPLM to run for gubernatorial position during the 2010 election.

Bakasoro said the ministerial position is one of the three positions allocated to the SSOA, but to individual parties and as such he is not giving up his position calling it his own property despite joining the SPLM under Kiir.

“Of course, I’m not losing [my ministerial position] because that is my own property,” Bakasoro said when asked as to whether he will step down from the SSOA position. The property which was given to us as NMC, we can sell it, we can own it and we can move with it as long as the peace implementation is moving forward.”

The top opposition leader argued that “The shares had been distributed to each individual and each individual has the right either to sell his share or to own his share or to abandon his share, so the share is working.”

“SSOA is not an entity by itself, it is a consortium, so SSOA will continue to operate as an umbrella but each individual party within SSOA can make a decision of his/her own and then move the implementation forward,” he adds.