By Isaac Chol Aguer<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The other night, while strolling through Facebook, I came across a post from a friend asking a question so simple it hurt: \u201cWho actually gets the jobs posted on South Sudan NGO Forum?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I laughed, not because it was funny \u2014 but because it was the kind of question that should\u2019ve crossed my mind years ago. I\u2019ve spent years sending job links to friends, urging them to visit the site. \u201cApply, brother\/Sister. Don\u2019t lose hope.\u201d<\/em> But hope here moves faster than the dollar rate.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve spent any time on that website, you\u2019ve seen it. Vacancies from NGOs you\u2019ve never heard of positions with fat salaries and neat job descriptions. \u201cProject Officer.\u201d<\/em> \u201cWASH Coordinator.\u201d<\/em> \u201cFinance Manager.\u201d etc.<\/em><\/p>\n All marked \u201cSouth Sudanese Nationals encouraged to apply.\u201d<\/em> And yet, ask around \u2014 who\u2019s actually landing those jobs?<\/p>\n Not you. Not the girl selling tea at Custom Park. Not the boy pushing a wheelbarrow or the other driving a Raickshaw in Munuki. Not the graduate in Gudele with a CV thicker than the Constitution.<\/p>\n But someone is. And it\u2019s usually someone you haven\u2019t seen in years. Someone who vanished during hard times and reappeared driving a V8 with tinted windows, politely saying \u201cyou know, life is tough in this country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s NilePet<\/strong>. A national oil company, we\u2019re told. Ask anyone when the last public vacancy was posted, and you\u2019ll get silence.<\/p>\n Yet every now and then, you hear of someone\u2019s cousin, neighbor, or distant uncle quietly finding a seat there. No interviews. No announcements. Just a quiet phone call and a new job.<\/p>\n Dar Petroleum?<\/strong> Same story. You\u2019d swear on your mother\u2019s health that the company has never advertised a vacancy in public. But you\u2019ll spot old childhood friends now working there, the same ones who once shared \u201cTaameya\u201d Falafel or chapati and \u201cJanjaro\u201d beans with you in school.<\/p>\n You ask them how life is, and they flash that practiced smile: \u201cWallahi, things are tough.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And it isn\u2019t just oil companies. It\u2019s the big institutions too. Commercial Banks, NCA, BOSS, Ministry positions.<\/p>\n Places where doors open silently for a select few, while the rest of us refresh job sites like gamblers hoping for a lucky number.<\/p>\n We joke about it, of course. It\u2019s easier than admitting what it does to you. But beneath those jokes, there\u2019s a weight.<\/p>\n A weight carried by every graduate selling airtime, every teacher turned into Boda boda rider, every engineer hawking secondhand shoes in the market. And we wonder \u2014 is this what we raised our flag for?<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a rant. It\u2019s a reminder. That this country was built by men and women who walked barefoot for it, who stood in line for it, who sang its anthem under trees before there were offices and titles.<\/p>\n And as we face another year, one simple truth remains: A nation that harvests alone will eventually find itself standing alone.<\/p>\n And as we approach another 9 July, I have a simple message:<\/strong><\/p>\n To those holding the doors closed \u2014 open them. To those hoarding the opportunities \u2014 remember the barefoot boys who walked beside you when there was no salary, no vehicle, no title. And to those in power \u2014 let this year be different. Not in words. In action.<\/em> Because this country is too small to keep pretending, we don\u2019t see each other.<\/p>\n \u201cAlright, my friends \u2014 same page, same time tomorrow. Maybe something better to say.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Isaac Chol Aguer The other night, while strolling through Facebook, I came across a post from a friend asking a question so simple it hurt: \u201cWho actually gets the jobs posted on South Sudan NGO Forum?\u201d I laughed, not because it was funny \u2014 but because it was[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":37204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oped","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Isaac-Aguer-1-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37205,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37203\/revisions\/37205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}