𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐢𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞

By Musa Bassadi Jawara | Economist & Author | Bintou’s Point, Kerewan

𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐢𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫 𝐅𝐚𝐲𝐞

President of the Republic of Senegal

Palais de la République

Dakar, Senegal

24 May 2026

Dear Mr. President,

The rupture between you and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has wounded you both to near mortality. But it is Senegal and the Senegalese people who will bleed in Himalayan proportions if this conflict hardens. The IMF has already frozen a $1.8 billion program after misreported debt pushed liability to 132% of GDP. With the government dissolved by your decree on Friday, 22 May 2026, the risk of carnage — economic, social, institutional — is no longer metaphor. It is at the doorstep.

You and Sonko ascended on “Le Projet d’un Sénégal souverain, juste et prospère”. You pledged sovereignty over resources, to renegotiate oil, gas, and fishing agreements, to fight corruption at all levels, and to combat youth unemployment by promoting entrepreneurship and creating jobs. On health, you promised to strengthen the system by increasing investment in medical infrastructure and guaranteeing access to care. These were not slogans. They were a covenant.

Some gave their lives for you to sit where you sit. The violence that shook Senegal saw many killed while hundreds were jailed. You and Sonko yourselves were imprisoned and released only days before the election you won. Their sacrifice demands delivery, not division.

Yes, Mr. President, we recall the disagreements. The contentious moments when former Prime Minister Sonko, from the floor of the National Assembly, laid bare the machinery of special funds — the _caisse noire_ — in a fashion few global prime ministers would dare. Nonchalant. Cavalier. Spilling the beans with the world, and you, watching. Not many leaders choose that path. But what happened, happened. We cannot rewrite the style, but we can redeem the substance. Senegal’s interest must be placed first — beyond pomp, beyond personal slight, beyond emotion. Brush it under the carpet, Your Excellency. Not to hide it, but to step over it toward history.

I ask you, with fraternal candor: measure your mandate against those promises. Has corruption been rooted out? Sonko’s audits have already exposed billions diverted from Covid-19 funds and cultural sector allocations. Has youth unemployment been reversed? Have oil and gas contracts been renegotiated to end “economic enslavement”? The people are waiting for the scorecard. You are the referee of your own legacy.

Senegalese families face a fuel subsidy bill that could exceed the 2026 budget by 1.15 trillion CFA francs if oil rises. Debt is at $13 billion. Macro and micro economic development remain stagnant while talks with the IMF are delayed. In health, in employment, in the daily welfare of the Senegalese people and the market woman, the nation aches for relief.

There must be an urgent solution, and it must come from you, Mr. President. As Chinua Achebe warned: _“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”_ And as Thomas Sankara declared: _“We must dare to invent the future.”_ The current circle of advisors at the Palais have directed you to the core of the problem. You alone must now decide whether to be remembered as the man who fractured the Project, or the statesman who saved it.

Mr. President, you are currently engaged in national dialogue consulting with past regime officials. History teaches us: meeting and dialoguing with the old guards will only deepen your political crisis and complicate the abyss you find yourself in. It could be catastrophic beyond this point. Remember, you are not yet on the threshold of your third year. Any ambition beyond the mandate the people gave you is politics, not development. Draw from the vast reservoirs of knowledge, wisdom and experience of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Failure to do so could cost you the trust of the people and the legitimacy of your mandate.

It was Senghor, the first President and poet, who by coincidence hailed from your Serer tribe, who described the slave trade: it _“ravaged Black Africa like brush fire, wiping out all images and values in one vast carnage.”_ He handed power peacefully with a few years remaining in his mandate — a rarity in Africa. He was hailed as a giant. If you follow the advice contained in this letter, you will stand on the towering plateau that history reserves for the giants listed above. Your Serer forebear chose dignity over dominion. Choose likewise.

All is not lost. The Project is bruised, not broken. The covenant with the people can still be honored. This letter is not an obituary or an eulogy for your mandate. It is a roadmap back to it. The path exists. You need only take it. History will not remember the insults exchanged. It will remember whether you chose Senegal over ego.

Fighting Ousmane Sonko and his PASTEF supermajority at the National Assembly — even for one fiscal quarter — will cost Senegal inordinately. With 130 of 165 seats, they control the laws, the budget, the reforms the IMF demands. A war with them is a war with the state itself. The result: economic catastrophe, institutional instability. The CFA franc shakes. Investment flees. Youth explode. And for what? A personal slight? The price is too high. Senegal cannot afford it.

The evidence and warning is out loud. The PASTEF majority have already declared war on your prime minister nominee-to-be. If the contours and design of this letter are followed, we could have a breakthrough and Senegal wins. Invite the current President of the National Assembly, Hon. Malick Ndiaye, to form the next government as Prime Minister. And recall former Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko to serve as President of the National Assembly. This would be the mother of all political rapprochements in the supreme interest of Senegal. It restores the Project, reunites the youth, and reassures the world.

Your Excellency, look to your borders. From the Sahel to the Casamance, they are infested with threats: jihadism, trafficking, foreign meddling. Senegal is the citadel of defense for freedom, security, democracy and decency in all of West Africa. The region is watching. ECOWAS is holding its breath. Mr. President, seize this moment. Drop all political calculations. Drop all future ambitions. Drop the whispers of advisors who profit from division. Fire the political advisors of the Diomaye-Coalition who brought you to this brink. Adopt the spirit and tenet of this letter. I promise you — as someone who has walked the hardest terrains of Africa — there will be no regrets. None whatsoever. Only legacy.

Respectfully, with the urgency of a neighbor watching with absolute interest and care,

Musa Bassadi Jawara | Economist & Author | Bintou’s Point, Kerewan

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