Machar rejects mass resignation of top SPLM-IO officials

JUBA – South Sudan’s main armed opposition leader, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, has refused to approve a mass resignation of top SPLM-IO officials, who resigned from the main armed opposition group last week, according to two senior opposition official close to Machar.

On November 19, SPLM-IO deputy chairperson for foreign relations committee, Pasquale Clement Batali, accused Machar in a statement extended to Sudans Post, of running the group “single-handedly” without crucial political roadmap that he said is always needed to ran a political organization.

“Let me take this opportunity to tender my complete resignation from the SPLM-10 movement and desist from its membership and all the activities of the movement with immediate effect,” Pasquale said.

“Right from the time I officially joined the movement in 2016, I have raised to your leadership on several counts my displeasures with the ways some important policy matters in the movement were being handled,” he added.

“After my appointment as the Deputy Chairperson for Foreign Relations Committee, you assigned me on many important classified missions whose reports and recommendations I did submit to you, yet you never heeded to those reports and never took any action.”

Last week, senior members of the group led by Elias Nyamlel resigned from the group, saying Machar has failed to lead the group.

Speaking to Sudans Post this evening, a senior SPLM-IO official who refused to be named said Machar has rejected the resignation of the senior opposition officials and demanded their return to Juba to meet him so that he can discuss with them the grievances the raised in their resignation documents.

“yes it is true. The chairman and commander in chief of the SPLM/SPLA (IO) and the First Vice President of the Republic has rejected to accept their resignation and instead has called them to come to Juba to discuss what may have gone wrong,” the opposition official said on condition of anonymity.

Officials refuse return to Juba

Separately, Nyamlel and Pasquale has refused in a letter directed to Machar to return to Juba and said their resignation was final and not negotiable.

“Referring to your public statement you made to the 6th SPLM/A-1O National Conference in Juba rejecting our resignations from the SPLM/A-10, and instructing us to report to Juba,” he said.

“We the under mentioned regret not to have accepted going back to the SPLM/A-10 and our resignation are final,” the letter signed by Elias Nyamlell Wakoson, Pasquale Clement Batali and Dr. Victor Bazilio Tindo, concludes.