Bad news: According to the last census of 2023 of the Agency for Statistics and Demography ANSD, males outnumber females in Senegal. 9 178 845 males, being 50, 6%, and 8 947 496 females, 49, 4%.

You will remark that it is clear: either we are male, or we are female, there is no third sex…

So what happens at night during this Mackyavelic decade, when all the cats are grey? Until the 2013 census, the opposite was true: there were more women than men. This biblical truth is also one of the main arguments that the prophets of polygamy brandish: there are not enough men for all the women.

Conclusion: dear ladies, we must share them generously, multiply the nuptials so that each one coos when their turn comes.

National problem: now that men outnumber women, what are we going to tell the guys in the neighbourhood? to get married in an unjust marriage?

Read the column – Wandering in Colobane

To add another layer, these brave polygamists, who save very little, only hope to live on average 67.7 years, while their valiant companions, who only see them one day in four, push the hope until 70.7 years… Does this explain it? Just saying…

We will end up getting bored with the Diomaye-Sonko tandem…

Saturday, July 6, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye receives beautiful people in his Palace. His face-to-face with the garrison of the Convention of Young Reporters is an anthological moment, during which the Senegalese President smashes sugar on the backs of their employers who embezzle social security contributions, forgetting at the same time to pay their taxes, to lead the way. Supporting demonstration, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, tax inspector by training, displays all his mastery in mental calculation: the 18% VAT on 100,000 CFA francs would make 1800 miserable francs which multiplies when added to the 100,000 taxable francs to donate 108,000 CFA francs.

It is unstoppable, and to doubt it would be an offense to the head of State.

Read the column – A too ordinary Tabaski

The companies that Inspector Bassirou Diomaye Faye audited whilst he was working at Taxes and Domains, must miss him: it must be pure joy to come across a State agent of this quality.

The detail that kills? His Dircab, Mary Teuw Niane, is a world authority on mathematics. Shoemakers are always the worst dressed…

Regarding this beautiful meeting between young reporters and young President, which results in a touching family photo, there is someone, however, who takes the piss: the president of the Council of Senegalese press editors whose reaction is almost immediate.

Ah, the jealous one!

To wash away the affront, Mamadou Kane published an open letter to President Diomaye Faye, in which we learned, to our amazement, that two of his requests for an audience knew the fate of the rejected suitor’s messages on WhatsApp: seen, read and ignored.

In summary, the blunder in question is a third request for a hearing. Read, seen and ignored?

With words full of wisdom towards the young reporters whom he promises to support, President Bassirou Diomaye retires to his apartments to prepare for the ECOWAS Summit in Abuja where his peers are in stitches.

There is reason: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have just created the Confederation of Sahel States this same Saturday.

In short, the three countries are taking a further step towards secession with ECOWAS, which they consider to be less than a neat thing-thingy erected to the glory of France. Moreover, Captain Traoré, as a worthy heir of Thomas Sankara, does not use euphemism to designate the Negroes on duty.

Follow his gaze.

At the end of this summit which is being held on Sunday July 7, 2024, the Senegalese President returns to his home with a new mission: to bring lost sheep back to the fairgrounds. Bassirou Diomaye Faye clearly has memory lapses: while they were in opposition, the Pastef party, through the voice of its president, at the top of his art, advocated the dissolution of ECOWAS, the creation of a local currency and the break with France.

It’s clear and unmistakable.

Read the column – Wet firecrackers, smoke screens: the massages of the month…

Back to the future… Since kerosene and aircrew are not free, the disgruntled will still cry out in horror to point out the cost of presidential trips to repair West Africa, a cause lost in advance, to the taxpayer costs particularly requested by the gang of tax experts in power.

On this very ordinary Saturday, the first of the month, we certainly don’t repeat the same ones, but we do it again: the day is dedicated to cleanliness, and it is Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko who plays the stars of the broom and the wheelbarrow, from Guet-Ndar, the stronghold of fishing in Saint-Louis. There he meets the mayor and no less brother-in-law of Macky Sall, Mansour Faye, him and his list of endless grievances like a day without bread.  The Prime Minister then allows himself a little pilgrimage to his student room at Gaston Berger University.

Let’s shed a tear at this historic moment that its flock should celebrate every year on the same date.

Read the column – A people, a buzz, a fair

It’s curious, but Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko must not read the news bulletins or the press. And we don’t tell him everything in the secrecy of his Prime Minister’s Office… Let’s happily pass over his outburst concerning the sixty billion CFA francs, which are really only twenty, on the subject of the floods: while he promises the fishermen redemption, Mr. Prime Minister is unaware that a hundred of our compatriots, on board a fishing boat, have just been added to the tragic list of Senegalese who set off on an adventure by the oceans.

Thirty deaths counted on a Mauritanian beach, and many missing. Bassirou Diomaye Faye, apparently, is not aware either.

So what are the police doing?

Meanwhile, in the National Assembly, people are biting their nails while waiting for July 15, 2024, that is to say next week. The Prime Minister, whose fiftieth birthday it would be, who has the gift of always meddling in what does not concern him, summons his ex-colleagues, the MPs, to update their internal regulations which, oh crime of lèse-majesté, does not take into account its essential existence.

The Pds, whose upheavals are hard to see, tries to save the furniture. Existential problem: in politics, arithmetic is essential. For the moment, in Parliament, it is impossible to count his loyal friends.

Read the column – I Am a Journalist but I’m Getting Treated

Just kidding, that was never the case. Reason why Macky Sall, to whom it is not done in reverse, will have his MPs sign proxies, given to his notorious unconditional supporters before each vote on delicate subjects.

Moreover, it is the Pan-African apostle of “France degage”, the irascible MP Guy Marius Sagna, who takes off his pants by suggesting to his idol, Prime Minister, with all due deference, not to appear before MPs incapable of sweeping their own doors.

Of course, it doesn’t take much for Ousmane Sonko to postpone his obligation: if the deputies do not do their laundry and clean up the Chamber and its buildings, he will take care of creating an Assembly of his own size to chat between patriots concerned with sovereignty.

If Bougane Guèye Dany slips away, knowing that he will not be welcome at these patriotic feasts, it risks bleeding. His first salvo to analyse the first hundred days of Diomaye escorted by his cumbersome Prime Minister augurs a duel of distressing intellectual indigence.

To quote Bës bi’s colleague, this imbroglio would be a vulgar game of “dupeties”. Who would’ve believed that the austere Senghorian Republic has become a soap opera? 

By Ibou FALL

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH