There are times when silence becomes an accomplice. And there are such hard, so revolting truths, that they cannot be contained in the narrow margins of indifference. Today, Senegal is faced with one of its greatest scandals and the most revolting: the diversion of funds intended for the fight against the Pandemic of COVID-19.
Remember that many lives have been lost due to a lack of oxygen in hospitals, and that others have been contaminated because of the absence of a simple facial mask.
I remember a telephone call from one of my contacts, located 6,000 km from his mother, suffering from the covid and hospitalized in a local establishment. He begged me to help him find a bottle of oxygen to save his mother, which, alas, succumbed to the virus. I would say that it is the greed of those who diverted the funds intended for the care of the patients who carries the responsibility. It’s just revolting.
Like other nations, our country has mobilized its latest resources, contracted debts, stretched out their sons and daughters of good will. Thousand billion CFA francs. A colossal sum, raised in emergency, in the name of solidarity and survival. Meanwhile, the people accepted the unthinkable: to confine themselves, to suspend their daily life, to worry about their own.
But in the shadow of the ministries, air -conditioned offices, and felt palaces of the Republic, some preferred vice to virtue. Civil servants, ministers, politicians – supposed to embody responsibility in times of crisis – have transformed into predators. While patients were suffocating for lack of oxygen, they had the millions diverted. While caregivers fell to the front without adequate equipment, they multiplied offshore accounts.
What a shame! What unworthiness! What a betrayal!
It is no longer simply a financial scandal. It is a moral crime against a people in distress. A slap to those who have lost relatives, an insult to the dead of the virus, a desecration of the republican pact.
Justice has a duty. Only one. Be up to the pain of the people. No surety can be tolerated. No behind -the -scenes arrangement will be accepted. It is very likely that these criminals in costume will use the stolen money to protect themselves, to buy their freedom. It must stop.
When a young man steals a phone, he sleeps in prison. When a citizen flies to eat, he is thrown into a cell. So what about those who steal the hopes of an entire country? What about those who plunder in time of health? They deserve no indulgence.
Ethics, dignity, fear of God-where did they go? These words still resonate in speeches, but they seem to be absent from the hearts of those who betrayed us.
The people look. The people are waiting. And the people will not forget.
Today, the ball is in the justice camp. She says she is independent? Does she say to the service of truth and the law? It’s time to prove it. It’s time to judge with rigor, to sanction with exemplarity.
Because if the white collar thieves escape the sanctions, then it is the very idea of justice that will be buried. And with it, the honor of a nation.
Senegal, Niokobok. Never forget
Signed: Sheikh’s eye
