Focus on Africa

Why did Senegal's president dissolve parliament?

Why did Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dissolve the National Assembly?

Consensual same sex acts are not a crime in Ivory Coast, so why are homophobic attacks on the rise?

Plus, we meet the man who's trying to save African indigenous vegetables from dying out.

Presenter: Audrey Brown Producers: Charles Gitonga in Nairobi and Nyasha Michelle, Bella Hassan and Yvette Twagiramariya in London. Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga Technical producer: Francesca Dunne Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi

Broadcast on:: 16 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

Hello and welcome to this podcast from the BBC World Service. Please let us know what you think and tell other people about us on social media. Podcasts from the BBC World Service are supported by advertising. Explaining football to the friend who's just there for the nachos, hard. Tailgating from home like a pro with snacks and drinks everyone will love, any easy win. And with Instacart helping deliver the snack time MVPs to your door, you're ready for the game in as fast as 30 minutes. So you never miss a play or lose your seat on the couch or have to go head to head for the last chicken wing. Shop game day faves on Instacart and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three gross reorders. Offer valid for a limited time, other fees and terms apply. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? And like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maita Gomez-Rejoan. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season we're taking an A Run Bigger Bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Staying that the most popular cocktail is Margarita, followed by the Mochito from Cuba, and the Pinucula from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Audrey Brown, and today in Focus on Africa, fear and violence in the wake of an upsurge in homophobic hate speech in Coteivoir. I realized that most of my neighbors were looking at me in a very bad bad way, and then in the middle of the day, I saw people swimming. Using my name, I started to shake their legs, but I couldn't sleep no more. I decided to leave the country, and I left without feeling anymore. I'm so sad and disappointed about what's happening in my country. We'll hear more about the man who's leading that campaign and how the authorities are responding. And the indigenous plant-saver scientist, Dr. Seunigbe Ndaniko, has been telling me what we lose when we let indigenous food plants die out. When we lose these indigenous crops, we lose the opportunity to go back to improve our crops nutritionally. We lose also genes that can help breed us to build for more adaptive varieties to make ongoing climate change. It's Monday, the 16th of September. First, we go to Dakar. You may have heard that the parliament in Senegal has been dissolved and an election date to elect new members of parliament denounced. It's been six months since Senegal's new president, Basirou Jomai Fai, came to power on an anti-establishment ticket. In that time, he has had to operate with the parliament elected in 2022, meaning that most of the members belong to the opposition party, led by former president Maki Sal. In the spirit of new broom sweeping clean, it seems that President Fai dissolved parliament to try and get people in that are more willing to support his agenda for government. Nothing sinister or unusual about this is there, and he's hoping that his party will win a majority in November's legislative polls. I've been hearing more about this from Dr. Bamban Jay, Assistant Professor of African Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Just explain how the president found himself in the position where he has an opposition-dominated parliament. How did he come to this? Well, this parliament is inherited from the last regime, the Saudi regime. So in July 2022, there were a legislative election and the presidential coalition back then B.B.Y. Bedno Bocaaca won the election with a narrow margin. Although there was a lot of controversies about the results, they won the election with 83 members of parliament and the opposition had 82. So by one member of parliament, and it is that same national assembly that the Fai regime inherited. So it is that majority of Bedno Bocaaca that is still in the national assembly, and when they became opposition, following the election of March 2024, they constituted a force that could derail the plans of the current regime. So he now wants a new parliament where his party will have majority power. Do you think he'll achieve this in upcoming elections? I think so. I think so because, number one, the dissolution of the national assembly has been a popular demand. The Senegalese people wanted to see major changes happening in the legislative because it has been quite problematic in the past few years. And especially after they voted to postpone the election back in February. So they wanted to see that change happen. Number two, historically, a new regime usually wins a legislative election that comes right after the presidential. President Fai says that he dissolved parliament because it didn't support his agenda. He's only been in power for six months. He knew what the situation was. Why does he sound surprised? I believe there was a hope that a cohabitation would be possible with the opposition. But given what happened in June, when parliament refused to have budget policy debate with the Minister of the economy, and then later on, want me to impose a date for the general policy statement that the prime minister has to make before the assembly, it became quite apparent that a cohabitation will not be possible. We'll talk about his vision for the country in just a moment, but let's just talk about how parliament had been functioning for the last six months. You know, was the opposition dominated parliament's timing, his bills, he was unable to pass any laws, he was unable to get his vision through. What was happening? So, yes, it's a lot of that. For instance, President Fai introduced a bill to the national assembly on June 29th to basically abolish what is called the High Council of territory. But also the economic, social and environmental council, which historically have been considered as entities for political clientelism, right? If you have people in your parties that need jobs, it was a place where you would send them. So, it really didn't have any impact on the governmental apparatus, and it really sucks a lot of resources. So, he introduced that and the majority rejected the bill. On top of that, they also wanted to impose the prime minister to do his general policy statement, and went as far as picking a date for the policy statement, which is in violation of the constitution. And you see that the national assembly was being defiant on a regular basis and it became clear that there was no qua habitation possible between the legislative and the executive. So, let's talk about his vision for Senegal. What does he want and how does it differ from what came before? Joe Maifei and pastef and their allies ran on an anti-system platform. They promised to complete overhaul of the system. By doing so, people are expecting to see changes on so many levels. They promised, for instance, a complete overhaul of the judiciary. And few days after, a few weeks after the election, present by someone, a general consultation on how they can reform the judicial system. Because this judicial system, which is inheritance of the colonial system, has shown its limits, especially in the past five years. So, people are expecting that to happen, but also on the social economic level, they have promised a lot of changes. And I think one of the major decisions that they've taken was cutting the prices of certain commodities that technically people use on a regular basis. And I think it's a good sign of their engagement to bring down the cost of living. But also, I think it's very important to note that people are expecting their vision on the politics that they are going to unfold when it comes to the gas and oil that the country has started exporting. They exporting the oil now, gas not yet, but hopefully by the end of this year. What are Senegalese people saying about their dissolution? And especially President Maki Sal's party and the president himself. They can't be happy with this, but they might have been expecting it now. Oh yeah, I think it was expected. Now, if you just pay attention to what is happening on social media, for instance, or the people that I've talked to in Senegal, my family, friends, all of them are unanimous that it was the right decision to take. Obviously, it is not going to please the opposition, and there are opposing voices, especially from the Beno Boquiakar, who are denouncing the decision. Now, the run-up to the last election was a fairly scary affair for Senegal, which is not known for difficult elections and difficult transfers of power. Do you think that this move and this election will go off smoothly and that we now see the return of the most stable, more balanced Senegal that we are used to? I believe so. I believe that this election will be less rocky than the presidential one, and historically, legislative elections have been a lot more quiet, a lot more peaceful, and also a smaller turnout. Although, since the advent of pastef, I would say, legislative, local elections have been more intensely disputed, we hope that this election will draw a lot more people, especially younger people. We see that now they are more eager to voice their opinions through the ballot. OK. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you very much. And that's Dr. Bamba Anjai, Assistant Professor of African Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The social atmosphere in Ivory Coast has been changing in recent years. A spike of homophobic hate speech is worrying people from the LGBTQI+ community, leading some to leave the country. Now, Ivory Coast, or Cote d'Ivoire, as it prefers to be known, was a relatively stable, relatively tolerant country in a rough neighborhood. Surrounded as it is by Mali, Liberia, and Guinea, Ghana is a neighbor, too. It has suffered a military coup and two civil wars in the last 25 years, though. Threat of violence against those in the LGBTQI+ community began on social media, fueled by rumors of a child abuse case supposedly involving a gay person. And they've transferred to the streets, workplaces, and even into people's homes. Cote d'Ivoire's National Human Rights Council said it, and I quote, "firmly believed that the protection of LGBTQI+ rights could and should be carried out, while respecting Ivorian cultural values." But it also asked people to, quote again, "avoid any behavior that could be perceived as provocative or ostentatious." I've been speaking to our correspondent in Ivory Coast, Nicola Nichols, to find out who and what is behind the hate campaign. Nicola, what's been causing this spark of attacks and threats against members of the LGBTQI+ community? Well, the anti-LGBTQ+I wave started on social networks' engine with the General Michael Sohkambe, a very popular on social networks. He presented himself as an evangelical pastor. He declared that he would organize an anti-LGBTQ+I march when he switched 100,000 names. He claimed that more than 56,000 people signed the petition, but according to Change.org, these numbers were not verified. Change.org also said that Michael Sohk's petition violated the community's standouts. He then began to publish calls for violence against the LGBT community, and during August, things got worse. There were rumors about the sexual assault on the 15-year-old young boy, and some people accused a young gay. The General Michael Sohkambe, a constant TikTok, was suspended, but some of his videos were seen billions of times. And, you know, Ojerehi opened a new TikTok icon to where he declared the fight continues. So, who is this General Michael Sohkambe really? Did he come just out of the blue? No, the General Michael Sohkambe is really why not here in Cote d'Ivoire. She's what we could call an influencer, and she's the kind of person who always has something to say about the society, about politicians. So, she has a big community online, and she decided a few months ago that if she's new target, it would be in the LGBTQ+I community. So, what has been the attitude towards people from the LGBTQI+ community in Cote d'Ivoire, because it does seem that he fell on fertile soil with these remarks that he's made? It's been really difficult. You know, Ivory Coast is known to be very tolerant in terms of sexual orientation. And those past weeks, LGBT rights organizations such as the Movement, Social, LGBT, the Cote d'Ivoire, meaning the social LGBT movements of Ivory Coast have reported more than 30 physical attacks since the beginning of August. I spoke to Breathe's Denied Debyei. She's the founder of the NGO Robo, and also an active activist, and she told me how concerned she was about what she considers an unprecedented liberal violence. Yuna is the director of the NGO, Dua Aladifianz, meaning we have the rights to be different, and Yuna is a transgender woman, and she also confirmed the scale of the phenomenon mentioned, direct threats. So, in this country, non-for-being ability to learn towards LGBT people, it's been very difficult for most sexual and transgender people. I spoke to Yuna, Yuna is a young lawyer, and he had to free the country because she was scared for his life. I went to buy something to eat, and I realized some of my neighbors were looking at me in a very bad way, but I didn't suspect anything. I just went to bed, and then in the middle of the night, I heard people swearing, using my name, looking very strongly at the door. I stopped to get worried, but I don't know what to do. Then I heard some people's evening. I started to shake their legs, but I couldn't sleep no more. I decided to leave the country. I took what I was able to take, and I left without killing anyone. I'm now in a neighboring country, staying with different. I'm so sad and disappointed about what's happening in my country. Why can't I just be myself and live in freedom? And that's Leonel now outside of Kottivar, because he was too scared to stay in the country due to threats against people from the LGBTQI+ community. So, what's been the government's response to this? The government responded to this last week after a cabinet meeting, a journalist asked the spokesperson of the government, the minister member of the Tory, what was the position of the government, and the minister said that all the citizens of Ivory Coast asked citizens of Ivory Coast and shouldn't be victims of violence. But he also emphasized, on the fact, that there were no plans to legalize same-sex marriage. You should know that in Ivory Coast, the constitution and the various laws, in particular the law and marriage, establishes marriage between two people of the opposite sex. That is to say marriage in Ivory Coast is between a man and a woman. There's a press release that was distributed with mistakes that refer to an article in the penal code that spoke of sexual orientation. The article does not speak of sexual orientation. There is no law in Ivory Coast about sexual orientation. This confusion has sparked a lot of reactions. I reaffirm here that on the principles of the state of law, which protect all citizens, no one has the right to enforce justice, to be violent to someone else. And according to the text, I repeat, that marriage is between a man and a woman. So, essentially, people are in danger. If they go to a police station saying that they'd been assaulted on the basis of their sexuality, what kind of response do you think they get from the police? I think that more often, people would be very scared to go to the police station because they would think that the police would not listen to them. The police would not take them seriously. At the same time, the police is supposed to be happy, therefore, one. We don't have any specific reports from the police talking about attacks against the LGBT community. But the National Human Rights Council appeared last week for an end to the wave of homophobic violence. And the people that you've spoken to have, they reported that more and more members from that community are actually being assaulted on the streets. And have they told us how it affects them? They told me that they always felt pretty safe here when I've recoused. They used to go out in clubs to be together, to go to the beach, to Waffen. And now, they are mostly trying to be discreet. They are still at home. Some of the transgender are trained to be more masculine. Something also very important to notice, the fact that most of them don't have no support from their families. They were calls on social networks, especially on WhatsApp, asking people to name who is gay, who is lesbian. And when I spoke to those two activists, they were sharing stories of young gays and lesbians having to leave their homes because their bozers or sisters just went to tell people that they were a part of the LGBT Q+I community, which could put their lives in danger. It seems like it's a trend in the region, right? Tell us a little bit more about what's happening elsewhere. Ghana wanted to pass an anti-gibil. Finally, they are still thinking about it because they were threatened by international organizations like the IMF to lose financial support. Ghana is a bit like Avroicos. It has a solid reputation for democracy and respect for human rights. Not like other countries, like I would say, you can't doubt for example, but they were really trying to pass this bill. And they are still trying to make it. It seems to be a very important topic before the presidential election. Also, I'm talking about the two countries with military transitions. Recently said that they were thinking about having an anti-gibil, which could impose jail terms for some sex relations. Now, in other countries, we see very clearly the influence of American evangelicals. For instance, they pump a lot of money into issues like this. Do we suspect maybe that General Mako so might have the same kind of influence? We could think that she could have been influenced by the eventual child shame in the US, but we don't have a new confirmation about that. General Mako so usually just shows a topic, just try to target someone. It's like he always needs to be on top of the news. He's always looking for buzz, as African people are willing to what's happening in the house of their neighbor. But there is no confirmation that he has any support coming from the US. OK, thank you very much. Thank you. That's Nicola Negos in Abigene for the BBC. This is Focus on Africa from the BBC World Service. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? And like, what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maita Gomis Rachon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is Back. And this season, we're taking an urban beggar bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that, the most popular cocktail is Margarita, followed by the Mojito from Cuba, and the Pinucula from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you noticed that the variety of vegetables we see in marketplaces across the continent is shrinking? And did you know that some of the fruit and vegetables that we do see are recent arrivals, or "Johnny just come", as we say? How they got to our plates is fascinating. But the disappearance of vital indigenous vegetables is worrying because they stand for more than just nutrition. They contain medicine as well. Many species are already extinct due to climate change, urbanization, changing eating habits, and the replacing of these plants with cash crops. Some endangered vegetables include okra, black nightshade, and amaranth. I urge you to look online to find out more. This is a global problem. 75% of vegetable diversity has been lost in the past century. Dr. Sonybe Danico is a scientist with a world vegetable center, leading a team of people who are determined to preserve and retrieve Africa's indigenous food plant heritage before it disappears forever. Pilot projects across the continent have already identified nearly 17,000 species that need conserving. 17,000. Imagine that. Imagine how many more there might be. So, how are they doing it? Actually, we are documenting not only those who are threatened. Those who have disappeared, actually, we can't do much about them. But our fight now is to preserve, to rescue and conserve those who are still present in agricultural systems in Africa. And our focus now is on those crops, and we do collect the seed samples from farmers' fields, and then we regenerate them. It means that we multiply the seeds, making sure that they are of good physiological and health quality, and then we store them under ex-itugene bank conditions. So that these materials can become available, not only for African citizens to enhance food and nutrition security, but also for the global community. So what vegetables are we talking about that are endangered, but that you're working on rescuing and preserving? We are working on crops, including, for instance, spider plant, which is a clomega in Andra. That is the Latin name. Other crops include, for instance, the blackjack, the African nightshade, the diversity of them is there. Some African amaranth species are also originally from Africa, which are collected from the wilds and consumed. And now we are working together with different stakeholders. I refer to breeders, breeding companies, to improve varieties for the market, so that these materials can become more available for consumers. Okay, so Amaranth, I know, they're leaves. I know in Jamaica, for instance, they call it kalalu. I have some growing in my garden, and my neighbors love it. Nightshade potatoes, right? It is the same family. Right. They say the nasiya family, but here we have Solanum, Americanum, Solanum, bleaterm, Solanum, filosum. Those are leafy types, which are grown, especially for the edible leaves. So they don't produce any tuber. They are quite different from potatoes. Okay, so they just leaves. What about the spider plant? What is that? The spider plant is also a leafy type produced for its leaves. We also have the ornamental type spider plant. I'm not referring to that. And we shouldn't eat that. Why is it called the spider plant? Does it look like a spider? Yes, the architecture of the plants, it looks like a web. So that's why it is called spider plants. So why are these plants endangered? These plants are endangered because of several reasons, including changing in food habits. We know that because of globalization and homogenization of trade, diet styles have been homogenized in some ways. So people try to eat and share food cultures. So we eat the same thing. So we eat chips. And we almost eat the same things. Cheaps, everything coming from wheat, those breads. And then when it comes to the vegetable walls, everyone is eating cabbage, the common lettuce, carrot, etc. So by this food culture which is changing, it also brings some burden on the originally indigenous vegetable species which were eaten by ancient Africans. So the cultural knowledge is eroded because the new generation, they lose the information and they lose that food culture. So from generation to generation, these species are disappearing, I will say, from African food cultures and then replaced by other species. So by doing so, these crops are also disappearing from the farming systems and also from the plates of Africans. That is one reason. The second reason will be, for instance, urbanization. With rapid urbanization, many existing agricultural lands around cities or within cities are disappearing. And they also disappear with the crop species indigenous to those locations and then systematically or consequently, they get lost from the food system. And then climate change, of course, is adding more to the challenges which these crops are facing. What are we losing fundamentally when we lose these crops? When we lose these crops, we lose several things. And number one is the cultural heritage that we lose. You've been so like a ceremony around eating certain things at certain times of the year. So we lose our connection to a natural world. Yes, we lose our connection to the natural world. That is number one. Second thing, we also lose the genetic diversity which also form the basis for the sustainability of agricultural in the world. So when the agricultural biodiversity strings, it also threatens the entire production system. We've new disease outbreak, we've new patients and other things like that, which comes to the farming system and increases the production cost because the farmer has to fight against these new patient diseases. Why? Because when you remove one plant host, which is the host of a particular pathogen from the system, they will try to feed on other plants that they will find in the agricultural environment. So it is an adaptation strategy of the pest. The other thing that we lose is nutrition. Many of these crops are highly nutritious and we know that we're breeding. We create genetic bottlenecks and we lose nutrient content along the way in the breeding pipeline. So when we lose these indigenous crops, we lose the opportunity to go back to look for new genes to improve our crops nutritionally. But also beyond nutrition, we lose also genes that can help breeders to build for more adaptive, for instance, a variety to the ongoing climate change. But also, doesn't it affect also medicine plants and so on? And you know that intrinsic nutrition that we get from something that's grown fresh from the soil, from our soil? Yes, exactly. And I was alluding to that when I mentioned that we lose nutrition. And many of these indigenous vegetables, they also come with a long, I mean, list of harmful of nutraceuticals. Nutraceuticals are those beneficial compounds for human health when you eat them, when you consume them as food. So many of them, they are full of antibiotics, others, full of vitamins and etc. And they help the human body to withstand and also to keep the regulatory functions so that we can keep healthy. But with the loss, we lose that privilege of healthy eating. Yeah, who is it that said that let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food? Exactly. So where can we find the crops that you talking about that that you are preserving and that you are selling? We don't sell seeds. We promote these materials so that the seed stakeholders can include them more and more into their portfolios, their offers to consumers. So we support different seed users, particularly breeders, to look into this diversity and breed more varieties for farmers. Okay, thank you very much. I grow vegetables and I love growing vegetables. So I'm going to be looking out for more of the indigenous crops. Thank you, doctor. You're welcome. Dr. Sonigwe in Danikou, scientist with the World Vegetable Center. Focus on Africa was put together by Charles Kitonga in Nairobi and Yasha Michelle Belahassan and Yvette Tuaguiramaria here in London. Paul Bachabinga is our senior producer. Francesca Dunn, the technical producer. Andri Lombard and Alice Medangi are our editors. I'm Audrey Brown and we'll talk again next time. Do you ever wonder what your favorite foods come from? And like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Mai Teguo, Mr. Huan. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking a run bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is Margarita, followed by the Mojito from Cuba and the Pinucula from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]