EXCLUSIVE: General Olony to return to Juba ahead of appointment to attend conference  

EDITORIAL NOTICE: Following the publication of this report disputed by the SPLM-IO, a Sudans Post audit found that the SPLM-IO Director of Information and Public Relations Puok Both Baluang who had spoken to Sudans Post earlier in the day was misquoted. An updated version of the interview has been published and is found here: CORRECTED: General Olony not returning to Juba before appointment.

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JUBA – The SPLM-IO gubernatorial nominee for Upper Nile state, General Johnson Olony Thabo, will return to Juba – ahead of his appointment as governor – to attend the forthcoming Upper Nile state communities’ conference due in the capital during the next few weeks, according to an opposition spokesman.

Olony was nominated by the country’s First Vice President and SPLM-IO Chairman Dr. Riek Machar Teny on June 24 last year.

However, President Salva Kiir Mayardit refused to appoint him, describing the powerful opposition commander “a warmonger” who he said would jeopardize reconciliation efforts between bitter Upper Nile state communities torn apart by the ethnic conflict that has engulfed the country for seven years.

In an exclusive interview with Sudans Post on Tuesday, Puok Both Baluang, the SPLM-IO Director of Information and Public Relations, said General Olony would return to Juba, ahead of his appointment, and will attend the Upper Nile state communities’ conference.

“General Johnson Olony will come to Juba as it was agreed upon by the Presidency during their fourth meeting that General Johnson will be appointed during Upper Nile Conference,” Baluang told Sudans Post’s Juba reporter in an exclusive interview.

The senior opposition official revealed that delegates from defunct Fashoda state are already in Juba for the conference.

“Delegates from defunct Fashoda State which is Shilluk community are already in Juba. They arrived at the end of the year 2020, we are still expecting others to arrive once the invitation is done and the preparation is on-going and the conference will be announced soon,” he said

On December 9, 2020, the Presidency held its fourth meeting in which it decided to convene a peace and reconciliation conference for all communities of Upper Nile state in Juba.

The meeting will center on reconciliation and healing, cohesion among the communities living in the state, civil administration of the state – especially the redress of the status of the civil servants that were laid off without due procedures of the civil service and cooperation among the political leaders in order to develop the state.

It will be attended by 496 participants with 232 coming from the capital Juba, 30 from Malakal POC, and 65 people from the 13 counties of Upper Nile state.

265 people will be brought in from regional countries, with 26 people from Uganda, 26 from Kenya, 26 from Ethiopia, and 65 from Sudan.