By Anyieth Duom Ang’oh Panyang, Brisbane, Australia
Saturday, 29 November 2025 (PW) — Michela Wrong’s “It’s Our Turn to Eat” is a Kenyan story but it central theme, the transformation of public office into a feeding trough is painfully familiar to anyone observing South Sudan’s politics today. The book chronicles John Githongo’s attempt to confront entrenched corruption in Nairobi, only to discover that in a system built on patronage, integrity is treason and truth-telling is a threat to power. South Sudan, sadly, is living through its own version of that story.
Recently appointed 10 commissioners of the South Sudan National Revenue Authority – courtesy of Gai Karanja Snr.
1. Nobody from the Equatoria region as a whole, which is the largest tax-base region.
2. Nobody from Nuer, the second largest ethnicity in South Sudan
3. Only one person from Upper Nile region as a whole
4. 55% from Aweil where the NRA Commissioner General (CG) hails from
5. 78% from Aweil (where CG hails from) and Warrap (where President Kiir hails from)
6. 90% from Dinka community (where both CG and the president hail from)
The mantra “it’s our turn to eat” is not about food at all but a metaphorical depiction of how ethnic identity becomes the passport to public resources. In Kenya, the election of one’s “own” to high office was often interpreted as a green light for that community to access state riches. Replace Nairobi with Juba, and the pattern repeats itself with disturbing accuracy. South Sudan’s political class has mastered a similar logic: once in power, it is time to reward one’s kin, secure loyalty through patronage, and treat national resources as personal property.
Public office in South Sudan rarely functions as a platform for national service. Instead, it has become a currency that is traded, auctioned, and weaponised. Whole ministries are reduced to ATM machines for political families and their loyalists. National budgets become wishful documents that bear no resemblance to the lived reality of the ordinary citizen. What matters is not whether a leader can deliver, but whether he can “take care of his people,” a phrase that has become a euphemism for corruption dressed in communal solidarity.
Just as Githongo learned in Kenya, South Sudanese reformers quickly discover that challenging corruption is equivalent to declaring war on the political establishment. To expose a scandal is to invite threats. To question the misuse of public money is to be labelled a rebel sympathiser or an enemy of peace. Whistleblowers are exiled, silenced, or violently targeted. It is as if the system has a built-in defence mechanism to protect the feeding circle at all costs.
This feeding culture has also infected the way South Sudan approaches peace and conflict. Political elites mobilise communities by telling them that if the “other group” wins, it is they who will miss out on the chance to eat. Conflict becomes less about ideology or reform and more about competing for access to the state’s resources. In this sense, the logic of “our turn to eat” is not simply corrupt; it is dangerous. It fuels ethnic suspicion, entrenches division, and ensures that political transitions are always fragile because losing power means losing the meal.
The tragedy is that ordinary South Sudanese benefit the least from this arrangement. While elites enrich themselves through contracts, inflated budgets, or “ghost” projects, the average citizen still fetches water from unsafe sources, walks kilometres for healthcare, and watches their currency evaporate under inflation. It is a bitter irony in that the people in whose name the eating is justified end up hungrier than before.
If South Sudan is to break from this pattern, it must first acknowledge an uncomfortable truth that corruption is not merely an individual failing but a political culture. It is woven into the structures that govern appointments, alliances, and even peace agreements. Reform, therefore, requires more than good speeches; it requires dismantling the patronage networks that have held the country hostage since independence.
“It’s Our Turn to Eat” reminds us that corruption is not just theft; it is a betrayal of citizens who place their hopes in leaders who treat power as a meal ticket. South Sudan stands at a point where it must choose between repeating this cycle or building a political culture that values institutions over tribes, competence over loyalty, and public good over personal gain.
Until that transformation begins, the story of Kenya in Michela Wrong’s book will continue to play out in South Sudan, different country, same script, and same tragedy.
The author, Anyieth Duom Ang’oh Panyang, is a South Sudanese Political Commentator based in Brisbane, Australia and could be reached via his email: [email protected].
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