Senegal’s new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has confounded pundits with his unanticipated characteristic entry on to the world stage. He is 44 years old, officially married to two wives, and was born and raised in the small community of Ndiaganiao, where, in an Al Jazeera account, “in 2022 … [he] campaigned to become the village mayor but lost.” Until 14 March, 2024, just 10 days before the presidential election which took place on 24 March, he had been in prison for 11 months on charges of defamation and contempt of court.
Faye’s Facebook protest, for which he was imprisoned, was against the incarceration of thousands of pro-democracy Senegalese, including his political mentor, Ousmane Sonko, who is now 49 years old and who has been described by voanews.com as a “popular opposition figure and mentor”, and, by Al Jazeera, as “a firebrand with a soft tone and a sharp tongue.” Sonko created a political party, PASTEF (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity), in 2014, and according to Al Jazeera, “the party attracted middle management civil servants who felt frustrated and powerless as they watched their superiors steal money and receive kickbacks with impunity.” In the 1999 presidential election, he contested and came third. Due to Sonko’s conviction, he could not stand for election in 2024, and so, in November 2023, while both of them were still in prison, he chose in his stead Faye who has been widely described as “largely unknown to the public”.
As Al Jazeera further noted, “overwhelmingly funded by the Senegalese diaspora from Europe and North America, Faye and Sonko ran an American-style campaign, campaigning as a duo ‘Diomaye Sonko’ on a pan-African ticket. They filled up stadiums and lit up the sky with fireworks.” Moreover, in the words of Al Jazeera, “They crisscrossed the nation, surrounded by bodyguards holding back frenzied crowds of young people wanting to get a glimpse of the men – as if the two were rock stars and not former tax inspectors.”
In addition, Al Jazeera recounted: “The crowds sang the anthem to their campaign: ‘Sonko is Diomaye, and Diomaye is Sonko.’ Broom in hand, [Faye] promised ‘sweeping’ change from a new currency and the renegotiating of oil and gas contracts to changing Senegal’s relationship with France and the French language. Faye promised he would put ‘Senegal first’ and make the Senegalese his priority.”
The opposition was also deep-thinking, clear-headed and pragmatic in its agitation for change. When the incumbent President at the time, Macky Sall, declared amnesty to all those who had been linked with criminal acts related to the struggle, the opposition saw it as the President’s tactic to protect the government’s goons who had been alleged to have committed acts of violence, including murder, against the opposition. But the opposition also recognised that opposing the blanket amnesty would mean keeping Sonko and Faye longer in prison and thereby progressively weakening the democratic agenda to change the government.
The opposition’s dilemma was like what is captured in the Yoruba proverb, “Ó só síni lẹ́nu ó bu’yọ̀ sii: ìṣó nìyí kò ṣeé gbé mì; iyọ̀ nìyí kó ṣeé tu dànù.” (‘They farted into one’s mouth, but added salt to it; the fart is not pleasant to swallow and the salt is not desirable to spit out.’) This is another case in which ‘compromise’ is not a dirty word. So, the pro-democracy agitators reluctantly accepted the “win some, lose some” dictum as a veritable principle of life.
Faye’s hypnotic transition from prisoner to President has immense significance for Africa, especially her youth. His relative youthfulness and that of his political mentor indicate that if the youth present themselves and are seen as a credible alternative to the elders they mean to upstage, the masses would give them unflinching support. Though Sonko and Faye were not known to have been stupendously rich, a wide range of Diaspora Senegalese trusted them enough to provide the funds to facilitate their success.
The trust and financial support may have been earned due to the fact that the Sonko-Faye movement had an unambiguous message which resonated widely. The clear message was that the old political order must change, and the objective consistently remained just that all through the struggle. Moreover, the Senegalese struggle had a discernible charismatic leader and a complement of credible compatriots. So, in or out of jail, the struggle had its set of trustworthy figures and rallying-points, and they were focused and dynamic enough to ensure that once any of them was legally-incapacitated, a replacement could be seamlessly designated.
This set of attributes was lacking in the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (#EndSARS) protests of 2020 in Nigeria. The protests were initially hugely successful, but soon manifested the rapid burst of bubbles as happens with “Andrews Liver Salt”, using the imagery favoured by opposition politician Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso. In Yoruba, this same effect is described as “Ò hó sùkùsùkù dá wáíwáí.” They started off as protests against police brutality, and according to BBCNews, “the demonstrations rocked the country for two weeks – and led to the government agreeing to disband Sars and set up judicial panels of inquiry to investigate the widespread allegations of abuse by officers.” Dazzled by this accomplishment, the protesters naively changed their goal-post and started demanding an end to the democratically-elected government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Legitimate questions therefore started to be asked about the real motives of the #EndSARS protests. Were they truly to stop police brutality? Did they have an ethnic agenda, given the desecration of the palace of Elékó, the Yoruba traditional ruler of Lagos? And given the live virtual directing of parts of the protests by Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the secessionist Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) that had been declared as a terrorist group by the government and the live reporting of the progression of the protests to Kanu by Igbo protesters? Was it also ethnically-motivated considering Kanu’s call for and the subsequent wanton destruction of properties in Lagos by Igbo protesters targeting Yoruba assets (especially those of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu)? Were the #EndSARS protests also an opposition design for regime change, given the transmuting of the slogan from #EndSARS to #EndBuhari? Could that have been the reason for the anti-#EndSARS protests in Abuja?
Moreover, there was no clear leadership for the #EndSARS protests. So, there was nobody or credible set of people to articulate an enduring noble anchor vision to feed the minds and consciousness of the protesters and energise them towards an unshakeable goal. In the circumstances, the protests were sustained by hedonistic t’ọ̀funlọ̀ràn (‘gut-propelled’ or ‘Where belle face’) needs. And food, drinks and reveling were provided in abundance while the protests lasted.
Besides the #EndSARS protests, concepts such as “Third Force” were created to wrest power from the major political parties, especially the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). However, personal promotion made agreement on a consensus presidential candidate difficult to reach by the parties constituting the “Third Force”. In addition, those who vociferously claimed to be advocating for youth takeover of politics in Nigeria were people who did not have credible democratic antecedents. In fact, they had put themselves up as unabashed ethnic and religious jingoists in the past. So, the overwhelming, politically perceptive segment of Nigerian youth refused to be swindled by the self-appointed puppeteers.
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The same fate bedeviled the Ebi n pa wá (‘We’re hungry’) phenomenon which was related to the tough economic situation of the country. Protests, possibly powered by some members of President Tinubu’s Yoruba ethnic group who never wanted him to contest or win in the first place, rocked the Yoruba heartland of Ibadan. Northern Youth, possibly angered by some of the President’s decisions which were deemed to be anti-North, also took to the street complaining about hunger and burning the nation’s flag. For some reasons, there were no notable Ebi n pa wá protests in the South-East. Some members of the Northern elite interpreted this as a reflection of the Igbo unpatriotic lack of concern for the fate of Nigeria and Nigerians.
However, some of the members of the Igbo elite argued that the Igbo suffered more excruciating hunger during the civil war, and this made the present hunger child’s play, and it would be pointless for them to embark on any protest now. Other members of the Igbo elite also argued that Igbos were not crying Ebi n pa wa, because Igbos were enterprising and survivalist, and could find a way out of any existential problem. Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo – the main Igbo socio-cultural group – also warned the Igbo not to take part in any protests, because such participation could lead to the singling out of Igbos for sanctions thereafter.
In a further ethnicisation of the Ebi n pa wa agitations, some Yoruba supporters of the President asked why there were no hunger protests when the currency-change initiated by an Igbo Governor of the Central Bank and a Fulani President, before the 2023 elections, inflicted unprecedented pain on a wide range of Nigerians. They asked whether the protests, especially as it concerned the Nigeria Labour Congress led by an Igbo man, who is also a Labour Party chieftain, were not driven by those who wanted to destabilise the government headed by a President who is Yoruba. The ethnicisation and politicisation of the protests therefore made effective common action difficult to undertake or sustain.
Perhaps the most noteworthy lesson of the Faye phenomenon is that he has not shown any desire to supplant his mentor. The legal encumbrance Sonko suffered by virtue of his conviction did not inspire Faye to want to distance himself from him, and neither did his choice as the replacement presidential candidate by Sonko make Faye receptive to sycophantic flattery which has the tendency to rationalise and euphemise ingratitude. Accordingly, one of his first major presidential actions was to appoint Sonko, on whose back he rode to global fame, as Prime Minister.
The Faye fate has reaffirmed the fact that liberal democracy is working in Africa. Moves by the incumbent government of Macky Sall to postpone the presidential elections, which were widely interpreted as a ploy to gift himself an unconstitutional third term in office, were vehemently opposed at high personal and social costs. Graciously, the opposition got the support of the judiciary, and, as AP News described him, “a previously little-known” Faye defeated the ruling coalition candidate, Amadou Ba, who was the country’s Prime Minister until 6 March, 2024. Ba called Faye, conceded defeat and congratulated him, even before the results were officially declared.
Now, would Senegalese get the premium good governance for which they have struggled so much and risked life and limb? Time will tell. Meanwhile, fare fair, Faye.
