Kuel Aguer says that he is still the governor of Northern Bahr al Ghazal State after a group of MPs announced earlier this week that they succeeded in impeaching him from office in a vote in the state assembly.
The bloc of MPs aligned to former state governor General Paul Malong say that Kuel has been removed from office and is no longer governor as from 26 January. The impeachment resolution that they introduced in the state legislative assembly bears the signatures of 19 members.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj yesterday, the governor said that the vote was illegitimate and he denied the charges made against him by the MPs. Specifically, Kuel said he never gave a contract to a company owned by his son and he denied taking a personal loan from the state.
Kuel who is currently in Juba was asked whether he would be returning to Aweil as an ordinary citizen. He responded, “Only if there is a rebellion — if there is a rebellion in the government in the state, then the authorities of the country will look into it.”
“If there is a rebellion in the state or there is a coup, then tell me there is a coup now. Because there is no authority in the state who can tell the governor not to return to the state.”
He added, “Unless there is a rebellion or coup in the state, there is no [legal] way that I am removed,” stressing that there was neither an official record of impeachment issued from the assembly nor a decree issued by the president removing him.
Asked whether SPLA Chief-of-Staff Paul Malong, who is also state SPLM chairman, was behind the efforts to impeach him, Kuel declined to accuse him directly. But he noted that the decision made by Malong to remove him from the party earlier this month was not according to the SPLM constitution, saying a member cannot be removed without an investigation committee.
“I wrote to the head of the party in the country Comrade Salva Kiir and I said that this move does not conform with the SPLM constitution,” he said.
“The party constitution doesn’t say that you can just get up at night and walk over to the [state] Liberation Council and say ‘I don’t want this guy’ and then expel the guy,” said Kuel.