Top SPLA-IO commander defects to President Kiir

JUBA, OCTOBER 7, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan’s main armed opposition SPLM/A-IO commander General Simon Maguek Gai on Saturday announced his defection from the group and said he was joining President Salva Kiir’s ruling faction of the SPLM and SSPDF.

Speaking to Sudans Post following the declaration which he made at the SPLM House in Juba earlier in the afternoon, Maguek said he defected along with other senior SPLA-IO officials because First Vice President Riek Machar who is the leader of SPLM/SPLA-IO has “privatized” the organization.

“I am speaking to you now, I am a member of the mother SPLM under the leadership of His Excellency General Salva Kiir Mayardit, President of the Republic of South Sudan, and the commander-in-chief of the SSPDF,” Maguek told Sudans Post on Saturday evening.

“Riek Machar has destroyed the SPLM-IO and when we defected, we didn’t know that it would be a family property as he has done now and this is the problem that he is trying to use everyone in the SPLM/SPLA (IO) to achieve his personal benefits,” Maguek said.

He said he defected with General Dok Wanjang, former SPLA-IO commander for southern Unity State and four other officers with the rank of major-generals and said he is working to make sure that “Riek Machar is abandoned for good.”

Maguek is a former SPLA-IO commander for sector two in Unity State. Prior to the outbreak of war in December 2013, he was the speaker of the Unity State Legislative Assembly. Last year, Maguek turned down an appointment as a member of South Sudan’s transitional parliament.

Officials close to the main armed opposition group told Sudans Post at the time that the senior SPLA-IO general had demanded to be given a ministerial position, which Machar said was not going to be positive because they both held from Leer County.