Buur Joe Bi, aka Cissey Ba, kicked off the month of June tweeting furiously. While the protests over the sentence of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison spread throughout Senegal, the 26-year-old tweeter reported on VPN systems to circumvent the government blackout of social networks such as WhatsApp or Facebook ordered by the authorities and warned of that the police used live bullets against the demonstrators. It was a deadly omen: a few hours later, he was shot to death at a protest in Dakar, the country’s capital.
Buur Joe was one of the more than twenty victims – 16 according to official figures – registered since the beginning of the worst spiral of social violence experienced in Senegal, considered a symbol of stability in Africa. In addition to the capital, there was looting and burning of banks, gas stations, supermarkets, public buildings or French interests in other cities of the country. Senegal is reeling.
Senegalese political analyst Saiba Bayo, who underlines the “appalling levels of human rights violations” by law enforcement – there are more than 400 injured and hundreds detained – believes there are reasons to be concerned. “Distrust in the president and the judicial authority or the police is at its lowest point in history. And the worst thing is that there are two opposing sides.
At the center of the outbreak is the announcement on June 1 of the two-year prison sentence for the popular politician Sonko, for the crime of “corruption of young people”, which de facto would serve to prevent his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections. .
From the side of the young politician, a crude plot to derail his aspirations to be president is denounced.
The case is inherited from the rape complaint that a young employee of a massage parlor launched in 2021 about Sonko. Although the court acquitted the opposition leader for lack of evidence, the forced turn to accuse him of “violating morality and facilitating debauchery” of the young woman is proof for the opposition that the objective is to get the president’s main rival out of the way Macky Sall, in power since 2012.
Former tax official and mayor of Ziguinchor, capital of the fractious Casamance region, Sonko enjoys great popularity thanks to his fight against corruption and a pan-Africanist and anti-colonial discourse.
Sall’s ambition to retain power is the other crux of the matter, as he is considering running for a third term despite being prohibited by the Constitution. The current president’s side alleges that he can do so because the law was amended during his first term and therefore the limitation would not count retroactively, a tactic to hold on to the throne used in other African countries such as Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Burundi or the Republic of the Congo.
Bayo describes the accusations against Sonko as “shame and infamy” and warns that “if the president does not step back and insist on running for a third term, I fear we will end up in a war and Sall will consolidate his dictatorship.”
Accusations of police repression and violence have skyrocketed in recent days and the web has been flooded with videos of uniformed men beating protesters in alleys and images of men in civilian clothes with firearms shooting protesters.
The government denied the majority and said that the armed men were violent demonstrators, although in several videos, viewed by this newspaper, it is observed how they act in the face of police passivity.
Senegalese activist and Creu de Sant Jordi, Bombo Ndir, also believes that Sall’s “arrogance and lust for power†is leading the country into a dangerous impasse.
“The degradation of democracy during his tenure is alarming, if someone doesn’t think like him or is a threat to his power, he gets him out of the way.” N’dir cites two recent cases: in 2017, the former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, and the son of former President Wade, Karim Wade, his main rivals at the polls, were eliminated from the electoral race through judicial maneuvers.
But the anger does not only respond to the democratic decadence; also rhymes with poverty. The Senegalese political analyst René Lake underlined this week in a television debate the root of the anger and weariness of young people.
“The situation is very difficult for many, unemployment is extremely high, 75% of the population is under 25 years of age, the educational system is crumbling… the increase in poverty is a reality for the majority.”
The UN World Food Program puts a figure on the sensation of free fall: 39% of the country lives below the poverty line.
