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The twelve peace agreements signed in the past and their ultimate failure suggest the inability of SPLM
political leadership to provide solutions to South Sudan’s multi-dimensional problems. As it is the case with
any other nationalist project, the ability to forge national unity in post independent Africa remained elusive

and so too is South Sudan. Ethnic diversity and manipulation of the same by the political elite has polarized
the country and in the process rendering South Sudan a failed state and transition. What is more, it suggests
the weaknesses of building a nation from the scratch in the absence of a common unifying factor except an
appeal to violence and war(SAD.533/5/23-25; 533/5/40-42, 4).

These dangers are not new but have been pointed out by Nkrumah, Nyerere, Fanon and Cabral in their
pan African debates and forums across the continent. The latter understood liberation as revolutionary
transformation that place people at the center of the political struggle. The power struggle and conflicts we
have narrated lacked economic policy debates or engagements on what kind of state and transformation South

Sudan need to undertake. The focus has been on who should occupy what position of power and influence
without interrogating the colonial past and the post-colonial development exigencies. The development
partners in South Sudan too have primarily focused on their national interests especially in the oil and
mineral sectors and in the process becoming part of the problem as they front political leadership who could

serve their own interests. The Uganda intervention in South Sudan in 2013 and Khartoum support for Riek
Machar should be viewed along the pull factors that contributes to the conflict within the region.

Since 2005 signing of the comprehensive peace agreement and the six years of political transition, the

problems confronting the state would have been reasonably addressed had the SPLM focused on the
nationalist agenda and offered political leadership in a manner that mobilized national energies towards
social goals primary to the liberation struggle. As compared to Eritrea and Angola, the political leadership
was able to mobilize resources and reconstruct their countries after long years of civil war and South Sudan
should not be the exemption.

4.5 Conclusion

This chapter traced the evolution of SPLM in 1983 through 2016 when the peace agreement was

signed. The chapter noted the challenges that confronted the SPLM such as internal factionalism,
power struggle, corruption, insecurity and internal party democracy within the movement among
other factors. It further observed the lack of political program and consciousness in the formidable
years as the cause of serious political rifts that has come to define the movement. Although the

SPLM managed to capture power after the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement in
2005, the SPLM political leadership went through periods of conflicts leading to fresh civil war
in December 2013. The narratives of the war and consequences have been analyzed in the chapter
and efforts of resolving through internal and external initiatives noted. The chapter places the

SPLM at the center of failure to address the historical grievances even after capturing state
power. The events of December 2013 and September 2015 suggest leadership failure and the
collapse of the nationalist project just as it did in the 1960s.

From the narratives, it is clear that SPLM has moved from series of crisis prompting the

involvement of regional powers and other agencies to mediate in the conflict. The chapter has

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