Writer: Garang Atomdit
Today, many of our brightest young people are choosing sycophancy over skills. Not because they lack talent, but because the system makes praising power more profitable than solving problems.
A young man who spends his day clapping for an official gets a meal today. Another who spends his day designing drip irrigation waits four months for a harvest that may never come.
Honourable leaders, this is not the youth’s fault. It is the incentive we have built. When politics pays faster than production, we should not be surprised that youth pick politics. When motorbikes are given for slogans but solar pumps are hard to access for farming, we should not wonder why farms are empty and we are importing 90% of our food from the neighbouring countries.
Bothersome questions that demand honest answers from the authorities are: “What do we lack in this nation that pushes us, since independence, to be importing what to eat from our neighbours? When will we do the needful and free ourselves? How many decades do we still need to produce our food? Are we sure that the imported food doesn’t carry untreatable diseases like cancer and its associates?
We come to you not with criticism, but with a request: “Discourage sycophancy and the import of food items by rewarding innovation.” Shift the reward. It is more honourable, more profitable, and more secure for a 25-year-old to grow sorghum than to chant slogans. When youth see that building earns more respect than praising, they will build.
Government, you have the power to reset this balance. A level playing field for the private sector is not an expense; it is an investment in peace, food, and the next generation. If we teach our youth to create before they compete for power, South Sudan will not only survive. We will feed ourselves, and we will feed East Africa.
Let us choose harvests over handouts. Let us choose builders over beggars. Together, we can turn our youth from political crowds into economic engines.
About the Author:
Garang Atomdit is the CEO & Founder of Mayardit Vision Group and Mayardit Vision Agribusiness Cooperative Society.
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