A group of youths in Warrap State have petitioned for the removal of Warrap State Governor Nyandeng Malek, charging her with incompetence, corruption and adopting dictatorship.

The group, in a statement dated 9 July, says it is working with various groups in the state and outside in Juba and beyond to persuade the president to listen to them and remove the governor. They claim that there is mounting anger in the state toward the governor.

Simon Deng, a member of the group, claimed they have collected about 2,000 signatures of senior government officials and prominent community members in support of their bid.

“The people of Warrap are calling for the removal of Nyandeng Malek because she has finished her term in office. Even before finishing her term, she was staying the office illegally because she had lost the support and trust of the SPLM leadership which gave her the opportunity as an official nominee to contest the 2010,” he said.

“In the constitution, if a party whose ticket was used by a member to get to the office withdraws the trust and confidence, the member automatically loses the legitimacy and can either resign voluntary or forced out of the office,” said Deng.

“In the case of Nyandeng, the entire SPLM leadership in the state has withdrawn confidence in her. The parliament also impeached her and the members of the general public had gone to protest the extension of her term. All these stemmed from her failure to provide basic service to the people, lack of cooperation with the SPLM leadership, rampant corruption and continuing to behave as if she was running a private company on behalf of her family members, and not public institution.”

“The people of Warrap have exercised patience out of respect to the president and the constitution in the face of brutality she unleashed on our people for the last five years without coming out to cause insecurity like in other states. Her term has finished and all we are asking is that she has served her term without successful stories and so the people of Warrap should be given another opportunity to select the leader of their choice.”

He said the people of the state were not asking too much from the government but simply advocating for respect of the constitution as a law based on the will of the people.

In a recent interview with Radio Tamazuj, Governor Nyandeng downplayed protests against her term extension while confirming that there is widespread hunger in the state

Separately, four Warrap youth leaders were arrested on 3 July for allegedly threatening the governor during an event held by the Warrap Artists Association in Juba at which she was the guest of honour.

Minister of Information in Warrap State Paul Dhel Gum told Radio Miraya the four belong to a group that plotting to harm the governor.

“They were trying to attack the governor. The bodyguards of the Governor who were present in the function, they managed to rescue the governor and they immediately called in the security to intervene,” he said.

“When the security arrived at the venue of the function they found these youth making a lot of chaos and a lot of unrest in the occasion; abusing the governor, abusing the government. The security arrested them. If you threaten the life of a person it is automatically the right of the national security to intervene and to interrogate you to find out who sent you and why did you opt for that?”

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