The Naivasha Agreement of 2005 also known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was entered into in Kenya between the Sudanese Government on one hand, and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The CPA had two main parts namely: conducting general elections as the first step followed by a referendum scheduled for 2011 for South Sudan to decide whether to continue as part of the continent’s largest country or secede to become a new nation.
 
The first step is well underway. The people of Sudan have been to the polls for the past five days. Preliminary reviews indicate that the access to the polls were, large and by, peaceful and also that the irregularities were chiefly administrative rather than a carefully executed plan to rig.

As usual, in the days to come, we shall hear from those who did not realise their dreams crying foul and all the things that characterise election results especially for a country like Sudan which has had no elections in almost a generation.

When all this is history, and it will not be long from now, sharp focus will be on the second part of the CPA: the 2011 referendum in the south.

Those who know about Sudan have suggested that Omar Al Basheer had accepted this difficult part of the agreement banking on the hope that South Sudan’s John Garang (killed in a helicopter crash in 2005), would continue to be at the helm of the government in the south and influence the outcome of the result in favour of a united Sudan.

As fate would have it, Garang did not last long. Salva Kiir, his successor and current vice-president in the national government, was opposed to Garang’s idea. In all probability, the result of the referendum is almost a foregone conclusion: secession. It is this fact which gets many worried about South Sudan.

Secession will not be the end of hostility and suspicion between the north and south. Neither will be a panacea of the woes of the south. Time and again we have been given glimpses of things to come.

A case in point is an incident we commented on back in August 2009 when in Akobo, a town in South Sudan, a deadly attack by the Murle on the ethnic Lou Nuer resulted in a reported death toll of over 200. It is an incident which plays out in the region from time to time.

Afro-pessimism aside, episodes like this one have earned South Sudan the moniker 'pre-failed state'. Without welfare amenities, socio-economic infrastructure and with a high propensity to reach for the gun, will the centre in South Sudan hold?

Regardless of the outcome, we hope and pray that the long-suffering of the ordinary people of Sudan be it in Darfur, the South or in the east will come to an end with a new era of peace, development and prosperity. 

Jamiatul Ulama