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An AFP correspondent said that a Dakar avenue named for Faidherbe, a French colonial ruler in West Africa, was renamed after Senegalese President Macky Sall in his presence on Sunday.
In the presence of various dignitaries and the Prime Minister and candidate of his camp’s alliance for the 2024 presidential election, Amadou Ba, a ceremony in honor of the Head of State was conducted in the heart of the Senegalese city.
The decision to rename the street in honor of President Sall, “an illustrious statesman, leader, and outstanding builder,” was made in mid-July at the request of Dakar-Plateau district mayor Alioune Ndoye, who is also Minister for the Environment.
Mr Sall, who was elected for seven years in 2012 and re-elected for five years in 2019, declared on July 3 that he would not run for re-election in the February 2024 presidential election.
This ruling helped to calm Senegal’s tense political climate, but tensions have remained. Opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who has been arrested since the end of July, is on “hunger strike” and is being treated in a Dakar hospital.
Amadou Ba (no connection to the Prime Minister, editor’s note), an executive from this opponent’s party, was arrested on Friday. “He is still at the research section, where the gendarmes have not yet informed him of the reasons for his arrest,” Ciré Clédor Ly, his lawyer, stated on Sunday.
In Senegal, the renaming of streets with names related to France’s colonial history is a hot topic.In September 2020, the Senegalese city of Saint-Louis, which was France’s first settlement south of the Sahara in the 17th century, renamed Place Faidherbe to give it a native name.
In France, Louis Léon César Faidherbe (1818-1889) is remembered as a military figure who saved the country’s north from Prussian invasion during the 1870-1871 war.
The Senegalese regard him as the governor who directed the French colonial operation in the 1850s and 1860s, condemning him in particular for violent colonial expeditions, deaths, and village destruction.
