South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on Friday revoked the appointment of Afekeru Animu Risasi as a member of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly representing Morobo County.
The embattled Afekuru was recently nominated to parliament on the ticket of the umbrella group, Other Political Parties (OPP).
The appointment of Afekuru as a member of parliament has drawn mixed reactions and public debates across social media platforms. Several social media users questioned her nationality, saying that she is a Ugandan national.
The Keliko community of Morobo County in Central Equatoria State, where she allegedly hails, has rejected the appointment of Afekuru Animu Rasasi as a Member of Parliament representing Lujule Payam in the national legislative assembly.
A press release signed by Agele Simon, the chairperson of the Morobo community, said that the Keliko community has no knowledge and historical background of the appointed lawmaker.
The statement added that after a thorough investigation, it turned out that Afekuru illegally obtained a South Sudanese national Identity card in 2014 as someone who purportedly hailed from the Keliko tribe of Lujule Payam.
“She is a national MP who claims to be hailing from Morobo, Lujule exactly, and of course we have been doing consultations here and there and we discovered that she is not existing in any of our clans in Keliko,” Agele told Radio Tamazuj. “So as the youth of Morobo and the Keliko community we are denying her. We do not know her. She is not from us. We do not have anyone of that kind from the two Keliko clans. She is not from us.”
The community members demanded the directorate of the civil registry, nationality, passport, and immigration in the ministry of interior to revoke Afekuru's South Sudan national identity card in the name of the Keliko tribe.
Albino Akol, the spokesman of the OPP interestingly distanced his group from the issue and accused Peter Mayen Majongdit, the leader of the OPP, of being behind the nomination of Afekuru as a member of parliament under his People’s Liberal Party.
For his part, Peter Mayen, leader of the Other Political Parties, confirmed that Afekuru was nominated by the Central Equatoria State women league under the OPP party list.
He said the OPP leaders received complaints from the local community and the leadership decided to suspend her name from the list until the investigation on how she obtained the nationality is completed.
In a separate decree, President Salva Kiir appointed Joseph Lual Achuil from the SPLM party as a replacement for Afekuru.