Senegalese security forces abruptly ended the march of opponent Ousmane Sonko across the country on Sunday, May 28, by arresting him in the south and forcibly bringing him back to Dakar, authorities said.
The Minister of the Interior, Antoine Diome, invoked the clashes between supporters of Mr. Sonko and the police which have accompanied, since Friday, the return of the opponent to Dakar in a convoy by road and in which a man was killed. “There was a death in Kolda, is the state going to stand idly by? (…) The answer can only be negative,” the minister said on public television.
He argued that Mr. Sonko should have applied for prior authorization before organizing what he called a “freedom caravan”. “We were therefore able to frame the leader of the [party] Pastef [M. Sonko] to his home [in Dakar], where he was dropped off,” he said.
A source close to the authorities specified that Ousmane Sonko had been arrested near Koungheul by the gendarmes and brought back by them to the capital. The interior minister reported that weapons were found in the vehicle carrying Mr. Sonko.
A long-awaited verdict
The fate of the opponent, engaged for two years in a showdown with the power for the presidential election of 2024, gave rise to speculation for several hours. Ousmane Sonko, declared presidential candidate but threatened with ineligibility by court cases, which he denounces as a state plot, has not given any public news since Sunday morning, he who usually willingly documents his facts and gestures live on social networks and had done the same the first two days of his trip. His party declared him “untraceable and unreachable”.
He had undertaken Friday, in the south of the country, a return march to Dakar, which he intended to make a show of force. The convoy attracted crowds of enthusiastic young supporters and was marred by clashes between young people and security forces.
In 2021, he was arrested in Dakar as he went in procession to the summons of a judge in a rape case. His arrest had helped trigger several days of riots, which had left at least a dozen dead.
A criminal chamber is due to deliver a long-awaited verdict against him in the same alleged rape case on June 1. He refused to appear, crying out for the conspiracy of power to remove him from the presidential election. In addition to a possible conviction, he risks the loss of his eligibility.