Opinion | Nhial Deng Nhial’s ‘plan B’ is sending Jemma Nunu Kumba home!

By Nicholas Chan

OPINION – Nhial Deng Nhial’s use of African magic should not be ignored. He is back, but this time, he is not setting up a fight within his home community of Tonj as he did at the presidency but has settled for a position held by Hon. Jemma Nunu Kumba. Jemma Nunu is the acting Secretary-General for the SPLM party. She comes from Western Equatoria and a veteran of the SPLA/SPLM war of liberation. She had held several portfolios and is an active senior member of the SPLM party.

To cut the long story short, Hon. Nhial Deng Nhial was the minister of presidential affairs for only 10 months until he was decreed out recently with three other senior officers. He was replaced by Hon. Marial Benjamin Bil. The sacking of Nhial took everyone by surprise. For the first time, the man was fired before finishing a year on the assignment as used to be the case in his previous appointments.

A month in the office, Nhial was involved in clandestine activities which attracted the attention of most people who cared. A clear marked division emerged among the youths of Tonj and elsewhere between those who were siding with him and his motives and the opponents. The online war of words took a huge toll on the relationship among the youths.

Nhial, according to the reliable sources, and while at the presidency, had aspired in many ways to unseat the elected president of the Republic of South Sudan:

The single advice he was given by his magic master was to be brave, and everything else would be history, which he did. Below were some of the steps he was lectured by the black magic practitioner to keep on his fingertips for use in order to ascend to the presidency:

1. He convinced through monetary bribes and jobs promise the JCEs to coin a statement, that would constraint president Kiir and his Deputy Dr. Riek Machar from contesting the forthcoming national elections, citing that those two were identified by the national dialogue resolution as the problem to the nation. The JCE in their later statements tried to attribute their actions to the national dialogue final resolutions. When in essence, the content of the national dialogue had not spoken about what was in a series of letters they published.
2. Nhial made a step at the SPLM national secretariat, where he bribed most cadres to advance his succession ploy. This saw a swift action by the SPLM Secretary General Hon. Jemma Nunu, where all the former SPLM state secretaries were reshuffled and replaced with the fresh people, who were to be loyal to Nhial.
3. Nhial further confused some of the senior SPLM cadres and members of the Political Bureau, the party’s highest organ, to go out and make controversial statements in the media. This particular strategy was countered by the top leadership, and calm was revived diplomatically.
4. Nhial was solely responsible for the writing and publishing of that long and detailed statement against the government in which he was serving as a national minister; a position which was to be purported to have been written by the unknown, unspecified, and unsatisfied senior military Generals in Bilpham. That letter was circulated widely by his associates for weeks to anger unpaid soldiers and for everyone to read and react negatively against the sitting government. There, he was intending to cause anger within the public, which might have resulted in a popular uprising. Fortunately, it was a mere witch-hunting and a wild goose chase that did not see the light of day.
5. After all these attempts failed to drive a wedge between the citizens, soldiers, and the government, he changed tactics by creating and sending out wild propaganda on the health of the president. You must have heard rumors talking of the ill health of the head of state. The propaganda talked of the planned visit of the head of state to South Africa for a kidney and liver transplant, a journey from which his return was unpredictable. His rowdy and naughty boys ran that propaganda for months until he was removed before the president finally paid a state and official visit to South Africa for 3 days and returned home sound and kicking to their amazement.

What did he do next after he was removed?

He fled the country for Kampala immediately after the president tripped to South Africa, by a small charter plane which was hired by his sister in East African Parliament, in fear that he might be harmed given the fact that he was heavily involved in treasonous activities against the state.

He connected to Nairobi from Kampala and to London, where he was observing the events taking place in the country, and returned recently to be sworn in at the parliament following the decree which reconstituted the national assembly. Before returning to Juba, he had gone back to Nigeria, where he was reported to have quarreled with the black magic master, whom he had bitterly blamed for lying on all predictions. That all he predicted would happen to lead to his ascension to power all failed to come to pass including the death of the head of state.

What is his plan B?

Hon. Nhial is not alone. Besides him are the disgruntled SPLM cadres who feel isolated and neglected. Despite that, Nhial had served in the government for many years and had not thought of the neglected veterans and cadres during his reign. Being a clever and selfish politician he is, he wants to use these cadres to achieve his objectives and forget them afterward.

In plan B of the scheme, his sole target is the SPLM Secretary-General held by Hon. Jemma Nunu Kumba. In his recent visit to his black magic empire, in Nigeria, he has commanded the black magic practitioner to put him at the position of SPLM national Secretary-General, where he would stir the party policies in preparation for elections in which he would declare and run as the SPLM party flagbearer. If you are conversant with some of his attack dogs who roam 24/7 online, you must have run into countless articles criticizing Jemma Nunu, for failing the party. How could an innocent woman fail a revolutionary party like the SPLM remains as an area of considerable collective conversation?

The present objective target of comrade Nhial is the SPLM SG. He is going to use his black magic powers to unseat Jemma Nunu and once he has conquered that seat, he will work in conjunction with the recently installed SPLM state secretaries to un-popularize and create a length of distance between the president, his strong men, and women from the party and its bases. By that time, his ascension to power by whatever means possible would be a dream come true! Hopes should not blindly be hinged on these state secretaries who were appointed because of being loyal to Nhial’s succession agenda. The salient mistake Jemma Nunu would live to regret in her entire life in politics, was listening to Nhial’s associates to replace the old guards in the state secretaries with the fresh people whose motive would not be in her favor, the president or that of the party.

Nicolas Chan is a concerned citizen and can be reached via email at nicholasmadingchan@gmail.com.

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