Over 150 SPLM-IO officials abandon Machar, join Kiir

JUBA – A group of 11 senior officials from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) in Warrap and Lakes states have defected with 150 others to the SPLM led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Peter Paduol Mangong Paduol, the team leader and former Warrap State Minister of Local Government and Law Enforcement Agencies, claimed that the SPLM-IO, led by First Vice-President Riek Machar, is not offering any solutions to the suffering South Sudanese.

“We are leaders, and what we want is for the government to fulfill the needs of our people, nothing more,” the group said in a statement seen by Sudans Post yesterday.

“We are back to the Mother Party because the SPLM-IO is not offering any solutions to the suffering South Sudanese people in our various constituencies in the state – instead, Dr. Riek Machar is busy sharing lucrative government positions with his wife, family, and bodyguards. We have left Dr. Riek in his position-sharing party,” the statement added.

Paduol said the group of eleven people is led by over 150 former IO members, mostly youth and leaders, back to the Mother Party.

“Conniving with his close allies to mobilize the grassroots to reject the upcoming national elections to continue the agenda of the extension of the transitional period or worse, the war at the expense of the suffering people of South Sudan.”

The group leader claimed that Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon wanted to boycott the peaceful demands of popularized democratic elections.

He alleged that they have been encouraged by FVP Machar to go to the grassroots to tell people to prepare for war to disrupt the elections.

“Dr. Riek Machar has proved to us that he is a political leader who trusts his own family and bodyguards more than the greater part of the country. We cannot follow such a myopic leader who is always politically suspicious.”

“Lack of transparency and equality; As you can observe since the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity; the so-called reforms agenda and democracy are all questionable because here in Juba it is his wife and his relatives who are holding lucrative positions with disregard to other SPLM-IO members who are active in mobilizing for his IO agenda,” he said.