It’s a very sad week for all Catholics, whose head of the Church, Pope Francis, « who came from the other side of the world, » passed away Monday, the day after Easter. May his soul rest in peace. As he breathes his last, he is at the head of what is undoubtedly the most powerful state on the planet, with one billion four hundred million souls devoted to him.

In Senegal, we owe the clergy a quality school, which stands up when everything around it collapses in education and instruction. And, also remarkable servants of the State, of the stature of the late Bruno Diatta, but above all our first President of the Republic, who brought us honour throughout the world. Léopold Sédar Senghor, a man of the world steeped in culture and good manners, with a high sense of the Republic, who strived to build a Nation, that is to say a seamless People, before handing over the keys to the Palace of the Republic with the class that will characterize him throughout his life.

Read the column – As a letter to The Post

Your « Sénégalaiseries » are also in decline this week: they have just lost one of their most loyal readers, Alioune Badara Ndiaye, whom we affectionately called « Pa Ndiaye. » A patriarch many would like to be descended from. Each time one of my collections was published, he bought many and gave them to his friends. He loved me, and I loved him back. We will miss his fascinating conversations, his humour, and his contagious laughter. May his soul rest in peace.

After these minutes of silence, let’s return to our quaint Senegalese farce.

Finally, in the Covid funds affair, after the administration’s second-stringers and the high-class VIPs of the previous regime, five ministers will be held accountable. The National Assembly won’t make much of a fuss about their indictment, in my opinion. Some have already been banned from leaving the country, just because of their good looks…

One minister, can pass; but five, it breaks?

It’s no longer a matter of a petty criminal, but of a mode of governance. The next step, without a doubt, will aim higher: the head of government… Unless I’m mistaken, at this time, it’s Macky Sall who’s taking it on. Just after the 2019 presidential election, without warning, he decided to switch to « fast track » mode.

We don’t really know what that means, but there’s a roar of applause in the ranks of the APR.

He’s got a head full of projects, but with a dodgy Prime Minister and a government of incompetents, it’s not working… It’s almost as if he’s campaigning for a third term. A sign of the times, during this entire period, anything that suggests the impossibility of a third term is dismissed without ceremony.

Read the column – The perfect return to sender

When Covid arrived, while the domestic debt was estimated at a thousand billion CFA francs, and corporate accountants were pulling funeral faces, the VIPs of the public scene, the head of state and his ministers decided by authority, unanimously, to devote the same amount to the unemployed, the slackers, the wankers, the bad sleepers and those frustrated by elbow grease. It distributed everything and anything: DIY water, masks, rice, and even pyjamas…

Intrigue-wise, the corridors of aid agencies are rife, to the point where unsuccessful singers become well-known media tycoons. As Dieudonné Mbala Mbala would say, « Sleep well, good people, I’ll take care of your money. »

Now, the time for reckoning is upon us… After the ministers whose imminent indictment leaves no doubt, the High Court of Justice will finally be able to tackle the big ones: after the murder of eighty worthy sons of the country and the falsification of public accounts, there will certainly be no shortage of ministers who could sell the former President’s skin to save their own butt. It’s the law of the genre…

A small fly in the ointment: Amadou Bâ, the Pastef MP, who has been rejected by the Constitutional Council. No, no correspondence from Macky Sall regarding a possible third term appears in the archives. Would that have compounded the accusation? The icing on the cake is that the same group of « Wise Men » has just invalidated his interpretative law.

Ah, the joy of using the longest word in the French language: “anticonstitutionnellement”…

For once, it’s Thierno Alassane Sall, TAS for the lazy, who’s holding the upper hand this week… So far, at Pastef, things have been looking down on them. Of course, he’s not one for sensational front pages that break sales records at the end of the day. On social media, he’s not the one whose videos and photos are seen as relics and icons among kids and young girls.

His greatest achievement was his standoff with the President of the Republic over the French company Total, while he was Minister of Petroleum. Of course, it ended in a brutal dismissal. Wouldn’t it be simpler to resign from the government when you no longer get along with the boss?

Who knows…

Yet, that doesn’t make him a hero to the frustrated people, who want France to get rid of its CFA franc, its soldiers stationed by the sea, and its gibberish, our official language, which sounds like Chinese to our current leaders.

He finds himself overwhelmed on the left by a strange little Frapp, and on the right, by a gang of exalted tax experts. These people make noise, cause damage, regularly put on a show, and it pleases the plebs supremely. TAS may wear on his forehead the proof that he assiduously puts his forehead on the ground and poses as a patriot in whose eyes the Republic has inestimable values, in the ordinary popular rabble, it is hard to believe: just imagine, a former cog in the system destroyed against his will.

And then, what is this crazy idea of ​​believing that we can sell the image of an honest man on a large scale to a populace of voters for whom cheating, lying, stealing, betraying, and fornicating are a way of life?

It doesn’t make the news and it’s meant to please the riffraff…

By Ibou FALL

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH