In his dispute with the wealthy businessman Babacar Ngom, Ndengler does not want to show any sign of weakness. Despite the poverty that has taken up residence there, this village nestled in the arrondissement of Ndiaganiao, department of Mbour, does not want to back down. He claims his land which the poultry magnate wants to expropriate. In 2012, Babacar Ngom benefited from a deliberation on the part of the rural community of Sindia allocating him 300 ha in Djilakh. However 75 ha of these lands belong to Ndengler. But if this village that no one knew before February 2020 stands up to one of the most famous fortunes of Senegal, it owes it to a man: Ablaye Dione.
The septuagenarian is the figure of this fight in principle led by this village which has existed for 252 years. “Jaraf” of Ndengler for 15 years, Ablaye Dione passed the baton in 2018. “I no longer felt able to continue,” he told Dakaractu.
But it was under his magisterium that the village saw its first classrooms emerge from the ground through a French expatriate. “He first built four classrooms before building a kindergarten box,” said old Dione, who added that the same philanthropist from France offered them a health box. “I also asked the government to make it a health center for the benefit of local populations,” added the former village chief. Who, despite his withdrawal from the administrative affairs of this town of a hundred concessions, continues to get involved so that their land does not pass by loss and profit. Where does he get this strength from? apart from the fact that he is personally “injured”, he says he has this character trait from his father.
Gorgui Ablaye Dione: “I got this from my father who was a great trader, but also a farmer”. “In the 58s, I was in Dakar and I worked as a worker in a factory located on the Route de Rufisque but after six years, my father Diambar Dione asked me to come back to cultivate the land. Since then, I killed myself in the field work and I admit that we sometimes had very satisfactory peanut crops because here, the land is arable, ”he recalls.
After the death of his father, he takes over and says he has always worked for the development of his family “with dignity”. “The greatest wealth for me is to have the respect of mine”, philosopher this old serer who gave proof, in the showdown with the founding president of Sedima that poverty and dignity are not incompatible. “During the handover with my successor, I was entitled to testimonies that will mark me forever. And that, I will never exchange it for worldly wealth, ”says the patriarch.
An emblematic figure of the fight of the villagers of Ndengler for the safeguard of their lands, Ablaye Dione has rejected 2 million that Babacar Ngom offered him as a “gouro”. “In 2014, when he came to negotiate the transfer of our land in exchange for jobs for our sons, we made it clear to him that we are not able to give him anything because we have no that these fields to live. He sent his daughter to get an envelope from his car. I refused to take this money because we are not beggars. I clearly told him that if he wants to make offerings, he only has to go under the Colobane bridge … Besides, this money was not intended to buy cola as he claimed . It was because he wanted our land that he did so, ”said the Patriarch of Ndengler.
Five years later, he learns that gendarmes occupy the lands that Babacar Ngom had come to negotiate and prohibit the villagers from accessing them. A “forcing” that Ablaye Dione, despite her advanced age, is not ready to accept. “These lands come back to us by right,” he persists. A firm position that the former “Jaraf” reaffirmed after the visit of the Minister of the Interior who claimed to have found a temporary solution, namely the businessman lending part of his land title to the villagers for this wintering. “It is not Babacar Ngom to lend us land that belongs to us. If there is anyone who must be put out of these lands, it is him. Now if Macky Sall takes our property to give it to Babacar Ngom, he has only to assume… ”, storm Ablaye Dione, still at the front.
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