Olony turns away regional delegation over request to go to Juba – statement

KHARTOUM – Main armed opposition commander General Johnson Olony Thabo has rejected a request by a regional delegation to go to South Sudan’s capital Juba before his appointment as governor of the oil-rich Upper Nile state, according to a statement from the SPLA-IO.

In June, South Sudan’s First Vice President and SPLM-IO leader Dr. Riek Machar Teny nominated Olony for governorship of Upper Nile state which has been allocated to the main armed opposition group by a May-2020 agreement between Kiir and Machar.

President Salva Kiir – however – rejected to appoint Olony as nominated by the SPLM  saying he was not committed signatory of the revitalized peace agreement signed in Addis Ababa in September 2018 and which ended the post-independent South Sudan’s deadly civil war in February this year.

Nine states governors have been appointed, but the Upper Nile state has remained in a state of power vacuum with Kiir and Machar exchanging blames over the delay in the appointment of the oil-state governor.

In a statement on Tuesday, the  SPLA-IO said that a delegation led by SPLM-IO’s head of Sudan Mission Gatbang Riir that included members of the regional bloc, IGAD, and some representatives of the peace-monitoring countries, had came to request for General Olony to go to Juba prior to his appointment.

“A mediation committee from the First Vice-President of the Republic of South Sudan Dr. Riek Machar Teny arrived yesterday at the General Headquarters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO). In the committee were members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), some peace monitoring countries, in addition to some members of the SPLM-IO Political Bureau,” the statement seen by Sudans Post partly reads.

“One of the reasons for the committee’s visit was to request General Johnson Olony to go to the capital of Juba so that he could be appointed as governor of Upper Nile State,” the statement added.

The statement said the proposal for Olony’s return to Juba had been rejected by the main armed opposition group because the “government in Juba does not observe the revitalized peace agreement and there is no serious implementation of the security arrangements in a serious manner.”

“So far, none of the forces at the cantonment and training sites across the country has been graduated.

“The incumbent parliament has not been dissolved to pave way for the formation of the reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly.

“Therefore, all the proposals were rejected by the committee that was sent from Juba. General Johnson Olony will only go to Juba once appointed as governor of the Upper Nile state just like all the nine state governors some of whom were appointed in absence. So, we cannot hand over General Johnson Olony to the government before his appointment.”