Two youths supporting the impeached Governor Kuel Aguer in Northern Bahr al Ghazal State were arrested in Aweil after opposing the replacement of the SPLM youth league leadership.
A section of the state SPLM secretariat loyal to ex-Governor Paul Malong organized a meeting seeking to replace the youth league leadership who were perceived as still loyal to Kuel Aguer.
They sought to remove and replace the entire leadership of the SPLM youth league after they rejected the impeachment of the former Governor Kuel Aguer Kuel .
Jok Lual, secretary for planning and budget, reportedly helped mobilize the pro-Malong elements against the other youths and advised the Police Commissioner Akot Deng Akot to arrest two youth leaders, Valentino Aguer Juac and Bona Baak Akueny.
The spokesman of the youth league Aru Maduok condemned the decision by the party to change the youth league leadership. He said their two members were arrested after condemning the convention to change the SPLM youth league leadership.
Aru said the state secretariat wanted the youth league to respect their decisions so they decided to replace the youth leadership.
Aru said, “The office of the SPLM youth league in Northern Bhar al Ghazal has condemned in strongest terms possible what is happening in South Sudan Hotel… the Executive has to be accountable to the Council and should be answerable to the Council. But what happened now is that some elements went and mobilized youth from the five counties of Northern Bahr al Ghazal and they bring the youth here in the SPLM headquarters and say they want to form the SPLM.”
“So the office of the SPLM youth league in Northern Bahr al Ghazal and said that this is illegal because we all know that if there is formation of the SPLM we will even be having guidelines from the national secretariat,” he said.