The Council of Ministers appointments are akin to sharing the spoils. After shaking up all the pillars that kept the Senegalese house standing, the time has come to reward all the figures who have contributed to this struggle. Rewards come in the form of decrees, tailor-made suits and dresses, at times, to dress up with honourability and give dignity to the unadorned circus that our Republic has become. After all, when politics becomes a means of upward social mobility, a miracle key to a career and a guarantee of access to all the gold of the Republic, it’s hardly surprising that appointments at every level seem to be akin to sharing the cake.

Positions come and go. The only valid criterion is to have made an unstinting contribution to the struggle ‘for liberation’ and the tipping of the wheel. At the banquet in the kingdom of the bewildered lions, all contributions are equal, however ignoble they may be, and above all, no friendship is denied. They don’t care about the embarrassment and awkwardness of certain companions. The indignation won’t last a week, before being swept away by another controversy.  In the meantime, another leap into the abyss will test our capacity for astonishment. Calls for candidates are a promise well and truly forgotten after four months of the Pastef in power. The nepotism that tainted certain appointments to key positions was magically erased from people’s minds after opinion is faced with one discourtesy to another.

Read the column – The art of diverting public debate with counter-fires

As in all things in this country, there will be militants convinced of the indefensible, who will give banal explanations, bordering on insulting our intelligence, to make the pill pass. In the midst of all this confusion, I will read the advice of a master of the worst, calling for the arrest of former politicians to make people forget the controversial appointments. “That’s where the social demand is, » he claims. I always find myself trying to understand how certain public voices can hold such scurrilous views, with blind hatred and fanatical partisanship in their blinkers.

These are the sons of Senegal who are being prevented from serving their country, even though they have every right to do so. No one would deny every Senegalese this opportunity, but when you have built your political career and your rise in public life by vilifying all nepotistic practices and taking offence at the appointment of people you would describe as « incompetent », as Ousmane Sonko has done on more than one occasion, you cannot afford to send out certain signals when choosing the men and women who are supposed to serve the Republic. Former President Abdoulaye Wade used to say that he could make a minister out of anyone. The emperor Caligula turned his horse into a consul in Rome. Let’s cross our fingers and say that we haven’t yet seen the last of the Diomaye-Sonko tandem. We will soon see the reshaping of our country’s diplomatic staff in the weeks to come.

Read the column – « Ubbi Deuk », a clear symbol of demagogy and impunity

By dint of talking about everything that goes wrong, it’s easy to be seen as an embittered or frustrated person who spits his bile at the rise of people who believed in a fight and gave their blood, sweat and tears to that cause. Nevertheless, one cannot help but make a few observations. Senegal is still a country that is sick of politics, which allows the most improbable practices to materialise. Politics has become professionalized, with entrepreneurs who have made it the road to salvation.  The senior administration is now giving in to this game of influence and this quest for positions by downgrading the value of merit, while giving itself hand and foot to the masters of the Executive. Through this form of allegiance, it loses all its power, with mouths that don’t fit the profile of the job at the helm. The politicisation of society and its divisive nature are realities that cannot be avoided. Faced with what we know is absurd and must be condemned, judgements are validated or opposed according to political positioning. We don’t talk to each other, we don’t understand each other, and all this while destroying our Administration from one appointment to the next.

By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE / saliou.diagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH