Senegal’s head of state, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, left Dakar Friday morning to pay “friendship and working visits” to Praia and Conakry on 24 and 25 May 2024, the Presidency said.
During these visits, the Senegalese president “will hold talks on bilateral cooperation and sub-regional integration with his counterparts from Cape Verde, Jose Maria Pereira Neves, and General Mamadi Doumbouya of the Republic of Guinea.”
Since his installation at the head of Senegal, the young Senegalese leader, 44 has visited at least five West African countries.
However, his visit to Conakry will be the first to a country ruled by a military regime. His Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, has indicated that he will visit Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger as part of a political tour.
Welcoming the leader of ‘France Insoumise’, Jean-Luc Melenchon, to Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University on 16 May, the leader of the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) said that “we will not forget our brothers in the Sahel,” referring to Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey, which announced in January their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States after creating the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in September 2023.
During his trips to Nigeria and Ghana, President Faye was asked by his elders Tinubu and Akuffo-Addo to dissuade the Sahelian trio countries from withdrawing from ECOWAS.
AC/fss/abj/APA