SSOA denies wrongdoing after Dr. Lam’s group said it was locked out of important meeting

JUBA – South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) led by Josephine Lagu has denied any wrongdoing after the National Democratic Movement (NDM) led by Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin accused some members of the opposition consortium of locking its members out of an important meeting that was meant to divide positions in the greater Equatoria states last month.

In November, Dr. Lam Akol’s group issued a statement saying its members who are in Juba were locked out of a room where some members of the alliance were meeting to divide up positions allocated to the group in the three Equatoria states.

According to the revitalized peace agreement, allocation of positions among the parties shall take into consideration ‘prominence’ of each part in a particular state, county or local area. This means a party has to be given a certain number of positions where that party has followers or members.

In a statement to Sudans Post on Sunday night, Jacob Lado, a member of the SSOA media team, said the National Democratic Movement does not have members in the three Equatoria region states, a claim Sudans Post cannot independently verify and denied the accusations saying the SSOA members who were meeting didn’t make any wrongdoing over the meeting because the rest weren’t required given what he said is lack of prominence for them.

“Mr. Peter Lomude must be educated that Vice President H.E Hussein Abdelbaggi Akol far-sighted that all SSOA constituent parties apply Article 1.16.4 of R-ACRISS that explains how responsibility sharing ratio in the states and local government should be implemented. Article 1.16.4 equally sends each party within Alliance to the state of its prominence. NDM where Peter Lomude is a member got its prominence in Upper Nile,” Jacob said in the statement.

“On 10th October 2020 in one of the meetings Peter Lomude and his group resorted to using violence against the leadership of SSOA in order to achieve their goals which failed absolutely, they issued press statements which was sent to H.E. President of the Republic of South Sudan and copied to 1st FVP which didn’t draw any attention from both Leaders. Mr. Peter Lomude is well-known for his attitude of spoiling peace.

“There is no report prepared and submitted by Hon. Chair to the leadership of SSOA as he claimed. The report Peter Lomude is trying to talk of was the one presented to the leadership of SSOA by the secretary of criteria development committee (C.D.C) that is headed by Hon. Michael Ayuen regarding power sharing modalities in all the ten states not only greater Equatoria.

“As far as these accusations are concerned, SSOA media team would like to make it crystal clear that Lomudes’ statement is totally a garbage and it doesn’t hold any meaningful argument.

“The group were not denied any participation instead they should focus on: Understanding R-ACRISS in details and participate in SSOA activities through their parties to implement R-ACRISS instead of trying to spoil it by recruiting and mobilizing individual characters to work against peace and undermine the suffering of our innocent population. The four minority members of SSOA are individuals who don’t followers in this region and they each come from parties which have no prominence in Equatoria.”