Jok Madut mocks South Sudan’s first female parliament speaker as ‘a certified deadwood’

JUBA – South Sudanese academic and analyst Jok Madut Jok has mocked the country’s first female speaker of parliament Jemma Nunu Kumba calling her “a certified deadwood” who he said will not make a difference in the country’s already fragile political system that has been marred by power struggles.

In a tweet, Jok Madut said there is no question that the people of South Sudan are against the government of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and that there was a need for a complete overhaul of the president’s government further criticizing the selection of MPs provided for in the revitalized peace agreement by President Salva Kiir.

“Does any South Sudanese doubt the futility of pushing for reforms of Kiir’s [government]t? Even simple acts by this government are so telling of its ineptitude & the need for its total ouster & overhaul. God knows everyone, foreign or national, has given it benefit of the doubt 4 too long,” Madut wrote.

Madut’s comments come days after the long-awaited Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA) and the Transitional Council of States was inaugurated. During the swearing in ceremony of the lawmakers, acting SPLM Secretary-General Jemma Nunu Kumba was elected as the first female speaker of the bicameral South Sudanese parliament.

Madut then criticized the selection of lawmakers by Kiir and said “President Kiir did not only hand-picked the legislators, messing up, appointing and then recalling some multiple times, but proceeded and appointed the Speaker of Assembly, against the basic constitutional requirement that MPs elect their speaker.”

He then mocked Kumba saying: “Now country gets Nunu Kumba, a certified deadwood rejected by her constituency in the last elections as speaker. What can anyone expect of a legislator picked by President? Which policy from executive will she really challenge & scrutinize w/out pissing off hatred man in J1?”