The author is a journalist who witnessed President Salva Kiir fall while boarding his aircraft on 4 November. He argues that the incident did not warrant press coverage.

I have had the honor to accompany President Salva Kiir and his delegation to Khartoum on Tuesday the 4^th November this year where he had a conference with his Sudanese counterpart President Omar Ahmed Hassan Al-Bashir, on issues of border security, economic, cooperation, Abyei among others.

It is my first visit to Sudan since we had attained independence. I and three colleagues form the Citizen Newspaper, Al-Maugif, an Arabic language newspaper, and The Juba Telegraph were invited by the presidency as independent media to cover that presidential summit.

The intention was such that the citizens get other views of the summit, other than that presented by the government. We were accorded the freedom to report. None of us were coerced or intimidated, we wrote what transpired in the meeting, and the subsequent press statement delivered by the two leaders. During their press conference Kiir or President Bashir did not illustrate any sign of sickness or of being tired. They were relatively in good health.

If this is the case why I did not report the collapse of President Salva Kiir on the Kenya Airways plane’s stepladder that day is that after the ordinary protocol routines, we were standing by taking pictures of His Excellency as he climbs to the plane, before reaching the last step he turn to wave goodbye. Then suddenly his right foot slipped, he lost his balance and tumbled.

He was aided up by the security personnel and escorted into the plane in good health. Then a second misfortune happened. The plane switch has a glitch of starting. Two problems occurred consecutively. The first was that President Salva Kiir missed the last step and slide.

The second calamity was that the plane’s engine fault that caused Kiir to delay his return to Juba on the same day. The third issues was that it was late in the evening when the engineers managed to switch on the plane but Juba Airport does not operate in the night because there were no lights for the nighttime landing.

Yes it was true that the president has fell on the steps. He knocked down not because he was bewitched, drunk or sick. He broke down as I can plunge as well as you can tumble. President Kiir is not a superman. He is like us and one of us prone to trials and hardships. He is a very important person to us. Whatever happens to him will pain us. The difficulties he has in boarding that plane wasn’t serious warrant reporting. We thank God it was a minor accident. Otherwise it would have triggered disaster in our relations with Khartoum.

Kiir is a gallant soldier who can fall and wake quickly to continue with the battle. That is exactly what transpired at Khartoum Airport on Tuesday, 4th November 2014. I would say the collapse of Kiir because of that sudden slide for missing a step is normal accident that can happen to any of us.

It only drew the attention of the people because he is a senior citizen of this country. His health and well-being is of public concern. The cave in was not a big news to report. The actual news was the two leaders had agreement on the formations of the six committees on Security & Defense co-chaired by the Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk and Abdulrahman Mohammed Hussein, Petroleum co-chaired by Salah Al-Wonshy and Stephen Dau, and others are important than the fall.

Some people went far claiming that the alleged Juba Prophet Abraham Chol, whose illegal church was demolished y the government at Simba Square in Juba, was behind the calamity that meted President Kiri in the Sudan. Following the destruction of his house of worship, Chol prophesied that President Kiir and the SPLA Chief of Staff, Paul Malong would either die or fall sick unless they apologize to God.

I do not know whether they had say sorry or not but as an eyewitness to the event in Sudan, Kiir’s glide in Khartoum is unrelated to Chol’s future sight superstition, sickness, or any other bad luck he had wished. There is no need to panic about as we have seen the President returned on Wednesday (5 Nov.) sound and healthy.

This article is reprinted from The Juba Monitor edition of 7 November 2014.

Related:

Kiir makes delayed return from Khartoum to Juba (5 Nov.)

S. Sudan’s Kiir collapses on visit to Sudan (4 Nov.)

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