During the visit to Tivaouane en prélude au Gamou, the Head of State announced that the support of the Republic for religious foyers will now be inscribed in the budget of 2026. This commitment to transparency and good governance reinforces the political will of the State to break away from the opacity and informal character which have long marked its relations with religious households. With this new measure, which follows the introduction of the teaching of religion in the national education system, the authorities manifest all the interest they accord to the religious fact. After the creation of the Bureau of Religious Affairs in 2024, which has recently evolved into a Delegation, we hope that our fundamentally religious country will have a Ministry of Worship, like other segments of society, such as the economy, sport, foreign affairs or culture. Everyone agrees that Senegal is a country of believers, and that our most beautiful wealth is our unshakable faith in a ONE GOD, the heritage of patriarch Abraham, the depositary of monotheism. Nous pouvons sans ambages affirmer que le socle de marbre sur lequel repose le Sénégal est sans conteste sa foi religieuse. One of the great paradoxes of our institutional architecture lies in the inadequacy between the religious social fact and the separation between the latter and our essentially Jacobin and secular state, inherited from the Fifth French Republic. We welcome and encourage the major and innovative initiatives taken by the President and which sound like a fundamental break with previous administrations. All Senegalese people do not practice sport and yet a Ministry of Sports is well present in the government, while the Cult is reduced to a Delegation housed in the Presidency!
Towards a Ministry of Worship: plea for a better recognition of the religious fact in Senegal (Par Magued Wade)
