Reverse Psychology Surrounding the Relentless Debate on the SUDD Wetlands and Water Management in South Sudan

By Deng Diar Diing, Mombasa, Kenya

Saturday, 09 July 2022 (PW) — I had promised not to post anything on this platform in regards to this relentless debate around SUDD Wetlands and Water Management in South Sudan. But I’m here again forced by the undeterred arrogance of the powers there that have allowed themselves to be used as a rubber stamp for a foreign agenda.

As I have always insisted, in spite of my inclinations, an evidence-based approach is the only safe way of making public policy decisions. As such, the conduct of a comprehensive feasibility study, environmental and social impact assessment, and resultant engineering design should have been prioritized before delving into this complex yet emotionally-charged debate.

This is my nick of time appeal. Please hypothesize the problem to leave room for exploration of different possibilities, have them qualified or otherwise, based on quantitative and qualitative findings.

Whatever you want to do, you do not start a project by moving machines to the site. That’s not how the world works. That’s not how the development we often admire around us was achieved. A project is always first conceived, then delineated and quantified and alternative analysis done to inform decisions before it’s executed. 

Our ministers have fallen flat to the ploys of foreign interests, which want to leave them with not even a file for future reference as the basis of decision-making on the Sudd. Without government-led studies, you have no basis for your decision to either dredge, canalize, develop dykes or impound the water.

If anything goes wrong with a decision made, there will be no way to explain how leaders arrived at the decision, nor will there be a foundation on which future generations can review and revise the decision. Studies also leave the government and its people with information and intelligence surrounding the project. Please, please, conduct comprehensive studies before anything is done.

I am aware that the recent appointment of the coordinator, who has no objective knowledge of the subject, has already negatively preempted any professional-driven approach to decision-making in this important discourse.

Our activists, on the other hand, have fallen into the reverse psychology technique of the exploiters by playing boogyman’s politics. Instead of insisting on an investigative approach driven by the government of South Sudan with the support of national professionals, our activists’ non-suggestive campaign for any collaborative framework that will allow their people to air their views on how to strike a hydrological balance in the Sudd i.e. flooding vis-à-vis dry spell has not been helpful.

How do I think reverse psychology has worked? This is how it has :

A minister or whoever he’s controlled by a foreign agent interested in your waters will simply cast most activists or concerned citizens as people out of touch with the pain of people who have been wallowing in water for the last 3 years and have lost all their livelihoods to the disaster.

Between activists who mean well but are indifferent to the pain of the people on the ground by standing against any action to resolve flooding and a minister or senior government official who’s driven by the vested and twisted interests of foreign agents yet presents himself as a solution provider to the impoverished people, they will certainly choose the latter.

Because of this approach, this important constituency, the activists and concerned professionals are now qualified as Social Media Criminals. 

I’m aware most of us have never worked in functional bureaucracies where important national matters are discussed and decided upon. We, therefore, have no idea of how the development that we admire was achieved. But one thing is universal: development everywhere is evidence-based. A feasibility study is integral and indispensable precedence to megaprojects, including war itself, which we claim to know best. 

Heretofore, I still suggest that let this be subjected to the academic procedure by conducting detailed studies that present all options with their SWOT analysis logframe before inviting the public to debate those options.

For example, the Null and Alternative hypotheses would respectively be:

Ho: There’s no significant relationship between SUDD’s ecological functions and the imbalanced hydrological cycles of flooding and dry spells, and it should be left unscathed.

Ha: There’s a significant relationship between SUDD’s ecological functions and the imbalanced hydrological cycles of flooding and dry spells and should be regulated using either canalization, dredging, hydraulic dykes, or impounding dams.

This way, it will allow room for investigative studies that explore all the options objectively. 

This way, the best decision that solves environmental issues facing our people on the ground and also preserves their environment can be made.

But as we speak, the political brinkmanship and economic opportunism have taken over severing chances of arriving at a comprehensive and objective solution.

The author, Deng Diar Diing (P.E), is a PhD candidate and the Deputy Director, Infrastructure Development and Management Secretariat, Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority in MOMBASA, Kenya, and can be reached via his email: Deng Diar diardeng@gmail.com

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