File: Joseph Bangasi Bakosoro, a member of SSOA

A member of the South Sudan Political Alliance – Joseph Bakasoro, says he will never leave Juba until the peace agreement is fully implemented.

The former governor of the defunct Western Equatoria State left Juba in 2016 shortly after he was released from the national security detention facility where he spent months over alleged rebellion charges.

However, he returned to Juba to November last year as a member of the South Sudan Political Alliance – a signatory to the new peace accord.

“I’m grateful that I’m back in the country after having spending two-three years out,” Bakasoro told Eye Radio.

“I came purposely with the intention that peace has to last and people have to return in their places, refugees and IDPs have to return.”

He appealed to his fellow peace partners to meet and decide whether to form the new government as scheduled or not.

“The government has to be formed at any cost any time when the stakeholders meet to make a decision.”

This, he says is “because… when [the parties] gather as a team to make a decision, is binding.”

“We want peace at any cost, for me and for the larger people,” he added.