26/07/2026
THE NCA AMENDMENT BY THE FOUNDER OF NYAN CIT ARIALBEEK
IT IS A MUST READ
The NCA Amendment: A Labour Pain in the Delivery of Service to the Twic East Community
Having led TEYA at a time when the contribution of girls to the affairs of Twic East was very minimal, I understand the importance of the creation of the NCA. Its purpose was to activate and energise Twic East girls to contribute to the prosperity of the Twic East community.
During my tenure, girls were largely invisible in community affairs. They had to be facilitated and persuaded to take on roles, and the responsibility ultimately rested with TEYA. With the NCA, however, Twic East youth affairs have benefited from the contributions of our girls. The NCA was therefore intended to create a tool to electrify and mobilise the girls' constituency within the Twic East community.
Looking back at my term and the two terms before me, I see the ongoing debate about the NCA's clause ammendment should focus on the roles the NCA should play and where it fits within the institutional tools for Twic East's prosperity.
Having witnessed the NCA's contribution, I believe the current debate is a labour pain in the process of greater participation and contribution by girls to the affairs of Twic East.
Whether by design or imagination, framing the NCA amendment clause and the associated debate as being for or against TEYA or NCA leadership is a dangerous and divisive approach because it activates or creates divisive fault lines.
In a natural setting, TEYA has a Constitutional Amendment Committee that serves the interests of the General Assembly (GA). The executive may give its opinions on what it thinks should be considered in an amendment, but the Committee owns the logic and arguments behind the proposals it presents to the GA for consideration.
A constitutional process should be led by people who reflect the expertise and diversity of GA members and their opinions in order to build trust and respect from the GA. This is the process that has been followed in this amendment.
The Constitutional Amendment Committee is often made up of TEYA members who understand the fitting of Twic's shoe. The Committee consults with other stakeholders on the proposals it presents for consideration. As a quasi-independent body from the executive, it helps arbitrate when there are differences of opinion among the GA, the executive, and the Committee itself.
Once proposals have been developed, the draft constitutional amendments are shared for wider reading and awareness, allowing for substantive debate. This process has been followed by the current Committee, although I have not followed the substantive proposals closely.
What I think is divisive is the way the debate on the NCA amendment clause is framed as being for or against TEYA or NCA leadership, rather than as a matter concerning Twic East as an ongoing concern. The debate is being framed as the NCA and its supporters versus TEYA leadership and its supporters. That is the tragedy of this debate: it weakens the working relationship between TEYA and the NCA, removes logic and rationality, and introduces partisanship into a debate in which we should all care deeply about the community.
In such a debate, logical grounds, critical differences, and viewpoints based on rationality and institutional memory are lost, while emotions and politics take over. Bullying and sarcasm replace logical arguments. Amer Mayen is among those closest to the logical debate on this amendment: calm, logical, and without disrespectful tones or political undertones.
As the amendment process unfolds, it is important to remember that TEYA and NCA leaderships are temporary, while the amendment is for the future of the Twic East community. The debate should therefore be logical. Whatever the amendment changes, the current leaderships have little to lose. Twic East, however, stands to lose through fragmentation if the rhetoric is framed as being for and against the NCA or TEYA, rather than being about Twic East and its prosperity.
Those advancing the debate for and against TEYA or NCA leadership need to tone it down. If the leaders of the two associations have different views, they should persuade the GA to support their respective positions during the GA debates. Any mobilisation that frames the debate as a contest between the two associations is dangerous for the community and the two TEYA and NCA.
From my own experience, after my leadership gave our opinions to the team amending the TEYA Constitution during my term, the Committee consulted widely and developed draft constitutional amendment proposals.
There were three proposals that my leadership considered inappropriate. One was a requirement for all contestants to have degrees. Our position was that all contestants should have, at a minimum, a secondary school certificate. If TEYA is interested in leaders with degrees, the community can elect leaders with degrees through the ballot rather than use a degree as a discriminatory requirement for voluntary community service.
The Committee stood its ground in supporting a degree requirement for all positions. It had firm and intellectually capable members, and we chose to respect its mandate. I told the Committee that we would engage with the GA during the constitutional debate.
When the team presented the proposed amendments for reading, I rose to comment on the draft. I pointed out three areas where we needed the wisdom of the GA to guide both the Constitutional Amendment Committee and the executive. On the degree requirement, the GA compromised and approved a degree requirement only for the Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson, Legal Adviser, Secretary-General, and Secretary for Finance. Other positions were allowed to be held by people with secondary school certificates.
True to my prediction, in 2023, a young lady who was supposed to be the deputy of Chairman Arok Dut was reportedly affected by the degree requirement, which, in my view, constituted unnecessary discrimination in the Constitution.
The GA is very rational and organised when its voting is based on logic, but it can become erratic and irrational when decisions are driven by emotion and politics. A politicised GA becomes a political GA. The ongoing debate has been framed through divisive rhetoric and accusations rather than persuasion.
Those framing the debate as support for TEYA leadership or support for NCA leadership are destabilising the rational GA and turning it into an irrational one. Leaders are powerful and respected when they are presented in a neutral and future-oriented manner for the prosperity of the institution.
The amendments are not for the current leaders of TEYA or the NCA. Supporters who use them to raise emotions are drawing a fault line and doing a disservice to both the current leaders and the future of TEYA.
The constitutional amendment is for the prosperity of the Twic East community. It should not be framed as “us versus them”. Once it becomes an “us versus them” debate, it becomes divisive.
The future is bright — a shared prosperity is possible.
~Garang Atem Ayiik
