SPLM Youth League secretary-general who referred to Nunu Kumba as ‘upcoming president’ replaced

JUBA – The ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-IG) faction led by President Salva Kiir Mayardit has replaced the party’s youth league secretary-general Simon Machuar who was suspended earlier this month after referring to speaker of parliament and senior party member Jemma Nunu Kumba as upcoming president.

In early November, Machuar wrote on his social media Facebook page to invite the public to a reception at Juba International Airport for Kumba who was returning home from a regional meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi where she was elected as the chairperson of Bureau of East African Speakers of parliament.

The senior SPLM official however angered the president and Kumba who felt she was being bullied into disagreements with President Kiir, when he referred to the speaker of parliament as South Sudan’s “upcoming president”

The SPLM Youth League responded by suspending him over the matter.

The office of the speaker also distanced itself from the Facebook post and accused the secretary-general of being used by “position seekers” to get the speaker out of her job, which the office of the speaker claimed has been Machuar’s job.

In a statement yesterday, the SPLM Youth League Chairman Daniel Abucha Ali appointed a new secretary-general as a replacement to Machuar, but did not specify if there was any investigation that established his wrongdoing.

He named Deng Deng Akueny as the new secretary-general, Matueny James Amico as the secretary of information, and Amani Paulo Ongiara Okum as the deputy secretary of the youth league for students’ affairs and said that the decisions are effective “immediately”.