The two-year prison sentence for “corrupting young people” by Ousmane Sonko, opposition leader, candidate for president and threatened with ineligibility, ignited the revolt in the capital of Senegal, Dakar, with a provisional budget of at least nine dead. Clashes have set fire to several neighborhoods of the capital also triggering fears that this situation could cause waves of migration towards Europe and arousing concern in Western chancelleries who fear that the insurrection will spread to other countries in a very unstable area. The main theater of the riots was the University of Dakar which has become a real battlefield with groups of young people who have clashed throwing stones at the police, who in turn responded with tear gas. Several buses from the medical school, the history department and the main journalism school were set on fire and offices looted.
the interior minister, Antoine Diôme assured that Sonko cannot appeal against the conviction because he was absent from the trial, and was therefore tried in absentia. The judges have it instead acquitted of rape charges presented by an employee of a beauty center where he had gone for a massage. “We have noted with regret the violence that has led to the destruction of public and private property”, specified the minister according to reports from the agency France Press. Diome also confirmed that the authorities have restricted access to social networks, as observed for Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter.
After two years of bitter political and judicial confrontation with the Senegalese authorities who kept the country in suspense and after the conviction, Sonko can be arrested “at any time”, announced the Minister of Justice Ismaïla Madior Fall. But such an arrest would risk inflaming tempers even more. The relatively young age of the opponent, 48 years old, his sovereign and pan-Africanist motto, the defense of religious values and traditions and his diatribes against “the state mafia”, multinationals and the economic and political influence exercised – according to him – by France, a former colonial power, the it has earned strong support among young people who are looking for perspectives and hopes in a difficult economic and social context where the under 20s represent half of the population. Sonko also represents for them the hope and the break with the presidency of Macky Sall, which after the Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from the Ukrainian crisis, has become synonymous with all the country’s problems: unemployment, inflation, lack of prospects, social inequalities and corruption. Explosive elements that add to another factor of tension: the possible announcement by the outgoing head of state that he is a candidate for a third term in 2024.