In our culture, a famous saying teaches this: "Everything that happens comes from Ndiack, and Ndiack is you."

President Wade confided in me one day, directly, that he was descended from "Ndiack," the same Ndiack to whom the proverb refers. He also spoke at length about the special role his friend Serigne Cheikh Mbacké Gainde Fatma played in his life, as well as the prayers of Serigne Fallou, Serigne Abdou Khadre, and Serigne Saliou Mbacké, among others.

One of his close friends also told me one day that Wade possessed the most prodigious intelligence on the African continent, from Johannesburg to Casablanca. This undoubtedly explains why he lived several lives in one. Some of these lives may yet remain to be discovered, if it is the will of the Creator, to whom I earnestly pray that many more years of health and serenity will be added to his century of existence.

From schoolteacher to dean of the Faculty of Law, by way of the International Academy of Comparative Law, his academic career—doctorate and professorship—would alone fill a lifetime. But at the same time, he still found the time, as a lawyer, to defend the Algerian FLN against France, and then Mamadou Dia against Senghor.

As a political opponent and founder of the PDS, he faced some of the most formidable trials a politician could encounter: the Libyan arms affair, accusations of endangering state security, and numerous arrests and prosecutions for unauthorized demonstrations. He never wavered from his path of patient and democratic conquest of power: never stepping over corpses to enter the palace. Four unsuccessful attempts preceded his triumph in 2000, on his fifth candidacy.

As Head of State and architect of Senegal's first democratic transition of power after independence, he successfully led peace mediations in Côte d'Ivoire and Madagascar, continuing the work he had already undertaken as Minister of State in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also conceived the Omega Plan, which became NEPAD, to provide the African continent with the infrastructure essential for its effective integration. He commissioned a monument to the African Renaissance, launched the Great Green Wall project as far as the shores of Djibouti, and endowed our country with a Grand Theatre and a Museum of Black Civilizations.

He undertook the task of repatriating the intellectual and spiritual legacy of El Hadj Omar Foutiyou Tall, much of which still languishes in the cold vaults of the Archinard collection at the National Library of France. He closely followed Senegal's performance at the 2002 World Cup in Japan, where he saw in the victory against France the finest definition of sovereignty: to be better.

His rise to the head of our country marked the starting point of structural changes that have placed Senegal in a good position for economic development.

In the midst of this prolific activity, he still found time to write books and to be… a musician — a guitarist, more precisely.

And then there were his anecdotes and bursts of laughter. His humor was matched only by his quick wit.

This is the Wade I choose to remember, on this May 29, 2026: Professor. Mentor. Father. Friend.

A man of genius, deeply humane, generous and infinitely endearing.

Happy birthday, Teacher!

Idrissa Seck