Guinean artist, Soul Bang’s, and his wife clashed with border police at Blaise Diagne International Airport  Diass (Aibd) last week. The altercation, which was broadcast live on Facebook, went viral and provoked a torrent of reactions. The Soul Bang’s affair will cause an uproar, as is typical of social networking sites and the connected generations of Africans who are quick to be indignant about everything and to react immediately before taking a clear-sighted look at the situation. It will be the perfect opportunity for a number of personalities to pour out their torrents of insanity on Senegal and to protest against the ‘treatment’ that our country and its border police apply to our doors.

All the starlets, apprentice entrepreneurs, zealous activists and public entertainers will have a field day railing against the treatment meted out to Soul Bang’s and his wife, demanding that people « be treated like humans ». The recriminations of our continent’s social justice warriors will ignore the triggers for such behaviour. No one will want to mention a refusal to comply and cooperate by a person who is asked by the officers for his address in Dakar in the calmest of circumstances. The Senegalese inquisitors, in their plea, will also gloss over the fact that the man (the celebrity, pardon the pun) will have to worry about getting his fingers scanned and completing the necessary formalities. He was already outraged at being checked by poor Senegalese police officers who couldn’t care less about her fame. One of his fellow Guineans will also be making a video to explain the whole sequence and Soul Bang’s cunning logic in creating an incident for himself and building on the buzz. It couldn’t be more clickbait!

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Blaise Diagne International Airport and its operations have their faults, which have been pointed out by various travellers. As a reminder, Madiambal Diagne wrote an article in these columns entitled « Save Blaise Diagne Airport Diass « , which looked back at certain anachronistic practices that have blighted the atmosphere and management of this airport hub. However, the desire to turn the airport into a land hostile to all foreigners is a dirty lie fed by those who hate Senegal and would find every opportunity to sully the country.

The Soul Bang’s incident, like those that preceded it with Martial Panucci, an activist, or Ks Bloom, an Ivorian gospel singer, were the result of celebrities thinking themselves worthy of preferential treatment in front of police officers who were only doing their job, without taking any interest in the titles, qualities and ranks of the travellers, when these were not under the supervision of known systems. Of the nearly three million travellers expected to arrive at Aibd in 2023, there has never been a single incident involving foreign diplomats, flight attendants, official delegations or celebrities representing Senegal. Dakar is one of the continent’s capitals that hosts hundreds of major economic, cultural and sporting events, without any incidents of this kind being recorded.

Last January, actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger had an incident with German Customs at Munich airport. The world-famous actor failed to declare a luxury watch on landing in Munich, only to be detained for nearly three hours and fined 9,000 euros to continue his journey. It’s hard to imagine the zeal shown by some of our starlets and authorities if such a case were to happen to them at airports on the continent.

From Dakar’s Blaise Diagne airport, I witnessed some discourteous treatment of Senegalese police officers, and I had to raise my voice in the queues, against a certain state of mind that drives some people when they are at the borders of an African country. The most zealous when dealing with our countries’ border officials are those who, in Europe, America or the Gulf, are treated in the vilest manners without ever flinching.

Returning from Yaoundé with a connection to Abidjan, we once landed at Diass at a time of heavy traffic. There was a long queue to get past the Senegalese police, and some passengers were having fun heckling the Senegalese for being too slow and too willing to strictly control travellers. I recognised some of them from our departure airport as being particularly vocal, I broke into their conversation, telling them that I spent three hours between the police and customs (the duration of my flight)! They shut up and there was no more disparaging comments about Senegal.

On another trip, one of these individuals, angry at everything, would surely return to Senegal after a few wanderings around the world. By dint of their wanderings, they often come back more exhilarated and with paler ideas of how to make and remake the world, with a healthy dose of condescension. In the same scenario, we arrived in Dakar in the late afternoon, and there were four international flights at the same time. The queue is long, even though several checkpoints are open. What airport in the world doesn’t waste time at border control? There were many sharp comments from this gentleman, who preached the virtues of conscientious operation and was not shy about spitting on Senegal at every turn. A Senegalese police officer came with his list of marines who needed to get back to their ship docked in Dakar as quickly as possible. He tried to identify them in the queues, despite communication problems with his documents in hand, in order to select five from the lot. This was the wrong thing to do, and our principled fellow citizen had his 15 minutes of fame shouting injustice and unfair treatment as foreigners were respected more than the country’s own sons and daughters.

I’m tickled by his racket and his insolence in front of Senegalese officers, to which I’ll reply that he comes from other horizons where he would never dare behave like that in front of officers in the performance of their duties. He played the loudmouth and victim card in the face of people who complied despite abuses by the Security Forces, and I pointed out the ridiculousness of his approach and his stupid quest for attention. Bold words flew back and forth between us, with officers stepping in to calm things down and, above all, to clarify the reasons for their actions. Passengers who had joined in his hypocritical concert swallowed themselves whole after ten minutes or so of taking Senegal and its police to task.

All this to say that there is still a condescending and hostile attitude with which some passengers disembark at Dakar, and any border police officer would be fully entitled to refuse them entry to the country and to deport them if they refuse to comply with the regular requests made of them. Our customs officers also face a great resistance from passengers for routine checks, which they readily accept at any airport in the world.

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The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Guinea, Morissanda Kouyaté, who stepped in at the start of the controversy to suggest that the couple lodge a complaint with the help of their embassy in Dakar, put a lot of water in his wine. He asked the couple to settle out of court after receiving explanations from the Senegalese authorities, while accepting the mistakes made by the couple, such as refusal to comply and contempt of officers. He went further, reassuring the Senegalese authorities of their professionalism and giving an idea of the hostile logic which some people arrive in Dakar with, by inviting his compatriots « to remain calm during their travels and to avoid altercations with the forces of law and order and customs officers« .

Ironically, one of the last acts of this Minister of Foreign Affairs in office will be the Soul Bang’s affair. His government will bear the brunt of the omnipotence of a presidential arm. The Head of the Transition will dissolve the government, freeze the accounts of his ministers and seize their official vehicles. Our artists and celebrities who took advantage of this episode to shamelessly insult the Senegalese police and further heckle Senegal, this sweet dictatorship, will appreciate such a gesture since « fighting for democracy » is the music of the moment.

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

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH