The author, a student at Cavendish University in Uganda, calls on South Sudanese stop supporting unpatriotic rulers, saying that if Riek Machar and Salva Kiir want to fight then they should do so as individuals over the grave of John Garang.

I wish our leaders should put aside their interests and work together as brothers and sisters of Republic of South Sudan. This country has claimed many lives and we should not spoil it cheaply like that. Even our ancestors may curse us. We suffered for many years and good enough God has answered our prayers to grant us the Country.

The way ordinary people are suffering is unbelievable. We need to do something to rescue our country from devastation. Most of South Sudanese could not settle to cultivate because of war and hunger. Am actually asking our Government to implement fully the peace agreement and solve the unsolved problems in the Transitional Government of National Unity.

We are tired of war and whoever thinks that he/she will cause war shall face the consequences of war at this time because we the ordinary people have learnt the fate of war. Let us just give chance to peace, healing and reconciliation. We are brothers and sisters and there is no one of us who can claim South Sudan to be his/her property. We have right to live and we have right to be South Sudanese. If we don't unite then other people will get advantage of us especially Sudanese, Ethiopians, Ugandans and Kenyans who are actually milking our country seriously as a result of our disunity. The only way we can help our country is through peace, why are we not trying to live peacefully maybe for 20 years and we can compare the status of peace and war. We have fought wars for many years and there is nothing we have achieved out of war. We have only achieved independence and it was through peaceful negotiation. So let us use this peace we have obtained recently to build our country and we will be able to compare ourselves with other countries.

Am also asking South Sudanese youths to stop supporting unpatriotic leaders who always take their children to stay abroad and leave our children with hunger, diseases and without schools. If Riek or Kiir want war then we shall let them fight as individual at John Garang Mausoleum and we shall see who will win. Let  us correct our mistakes and embrace peace to build our country to be like other countries.

Why are we becoming more tribalistics, if we don't want to leave as South Sudanese then let us leave South Sudan for other people to occupy and we go to where we want. Let us leave South Sudan as peaceful as it was created by God. I know some people are preaching rumors of war in 2018 because they are blind. We don't see or recall what had happened in 2013. Why should we continue fighting for nothing? Most of countries fought in the past but they sat down in very short period of time to solve their problems as brothers and sisters. If you are with your brother and maybe you misunderstood each other then you can not fight for ten days. Maybe you can fight for 10 minutes and if neighbors come to separate you then you reconcile and live together.

Majority of South Sudanese do regret themselves why God created them as South Sudanese. God did nothing wrong to create you as South Sudanese; this scenario of war are created by us and we need to blame ourselves. We are all responsible for war even you had not involved directly. All of us do encourage tribalism and and war among ourselves and this ideology will not take us anywhere.

The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made are the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.