Wade gets foreign Imams’ support for statute

As April 3rd edges closer, Senegal’s president, Abdoulie Wade, and his supporters intensifies their effort of preparation towards the inauguration of the controversial Monument of the Renaissance. One group of Senegal’s who are least expected to attend that ceremony are the country’s Imam, majority of whom have since declared ‘Jihad’ against the statute they view as ‘unislamic’.
President Wade would not take that, and late last December an intense war of words ensued between him and the religious leaders, which subsequently resulted in the minor rioting by Christian youth who found a statement by the president offending to Jesus Christ.
But it appears that the Senegalese president has found substitutes for his home based religious antagonists.
It would however take the president’s special representative to go up to the recently concluded International Islamic Conference in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott to make a statement effectively appealing for support from the Muslim Ummah.
Reports say that the call was received overwhelmingly by representatives of the countries present.
“2010 will mark the rebirth of the Islamic Ummah and Africa. And the inauguration on 03 April of the Monument of the Renaissance is part of this renaissance,” Wade’s envoy, Colonel Malick Cissé, said to a rapturous applause from participants who reportedly came from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Mali, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, among other Islamic countries.
The International Islamic Conference brought together more than two thousand participants, and it focused on “Revival of the Ummah”.
Imams from participating countries who were present at the meeting reportedly declared their support for the Senegalese president, and promised to grace the occasion come April 3rd