When Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko took the podium at Dakar’s international conference on sovereignty last week, he did more than deliver a diplomatic critique. He voiced a frustration that resonates far beyond Senegal’s borders: that global security decisions are still made by a handful of powers, with Africa left to manage the fallout. Sonko is known for calling it as it is. He said US President Donald Trump is “plunging the world into chaos rather than delivering the peace he promised”. The charge is stark, but it is the context—and the questions it raises—that deserve attention.
Sonko’s remarks came against the backdrop of a month-long US-Israel military campaign against Iran, followed by a conditional two-week ceasefire that briefly reopened shipping through the Strait of Hormuz before snapping shut after the relentless bombing of Iran-backed Hezbollah position in Lebanon. Sonko said Trump’s central war campaigns declared objectives — degrading Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and compelling an end to its nuclear program—have not been achieved. Instead, he argued, the region is less stable, not more.
That assessment will be debated in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran. Yet from Dakar, the calculus is different. West Africa imports fuel, grain, and fertiliser through supply chains sensitive to Gulf tensions. When insurance premiums spike for tankers near the Strait, the price of bread in Kaolack can rise weeks later. When the US president warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless a waterway reopens, leaders in the Global South hear not just brinkmanship, but a reminder that their economies hinge on threats they did not make and wars they did not start.
Sonko’s question of whether the world has become any safer under Trump’s leadership, is therefore less about partisan US politics than about the credibility of a security order that promises stability but delivers periodic shocks. For many African capitals including Dakar and Banjul, the answer since 2020 has been mixed at best: inflation, and debt distress have overlapped with conflicts far from the continent’s shores.
To understand the impact of his speech, one has to understand Sonko’s trajectory. Jailed during his presidential campaign after denouncing France’s colonial legacy and on-going influence, he was released amid mass protests. His party then won elections, he became prime minister, and his predecessor Macky Sall — viewed by many as a French proxy — left for exile. That arc gives Sonko a particular authority when he speaks on sovereignty. He is not theorising about foreign interference; he campaigned, was imprisoned, and prevailed.
Analysts label him a bold pan-Africanist for good reason. His rhetoric links domestic governance to external agency: true sovereignty, in his view, requires both clean government at home and the space to make independent choices abroad. It is a message that finds an audience among younger Africans who see their countries exporting raw materials, importing finished goods, and borrowing in currencies they do not print.
Given the havoc that the US is wreaking on the world, it is about time our leaders including President Adama Barrow stop talking in muffled tongues and condemn loud and clear the brigandage and idiocy being perpetrated by Trump and his evil allies wherever they are. Sonko’s speech matters because it is not just about Trump, Iran, or even the United States. It is about whether the next decade of global politics will include African agency by design, not by accident. Bold leaders can open that door. Africa needs more leaders like Sonko and Traoré of Burkina Faso – leaders who combine their courage to challenge external overreach with the discipline to build states that serve citizens first. Boldness without governance is noise. Governance without boldness is inertia. The continent’s future lies in leaders who refuse to choose between the two.
