“Building to be vacated and demolished. Dscos decision”. This is the wording written on the facade of the building housing the Amara Dabo national dojo, on rue Moussé Diop. Faced with the threat of losing their temple, Senegalese judokas are in disarray. According to them, asking them to leave the premises without a relocation proposal is a lack of consideration on the part of the public authorities. During the extraordinary general information meeting on Thursday, the budokas expressed all their “frustration”
“We must not accept this injustice,” insisted Souleymane Boun Daouda Diop, 5th dan black belt, world judo referee. The former director of High Competition at the Ministry of Sports regretted that the room was not full. “Today, we were supposed to fill this room, but there are not even 50.” He denounced the “passivity” of judokas in such a situation. “We must not agree to leave of our own free will, we must face it”
Some speakers, like Senseï Yatma Lo, invited all martial arts to unite around judo to combat this measure.
The president of the Senegalese Federation of Judo and Associated Disciplines (FSJDA) took advantage of the meeting with the judokas to explain the steps taken since the notification, on December 26, of the summons to leave the Directorate of Surveillance and Control land use (Dscos).
“When we received the summons, we transmitted it to the Minister of Sports who received us saying that he is taking our concerns into account and that he is waiting for a site to be offered to him,” said Ababacar Ngom .
He also informed of the proposal from the National Company for the Management and Operation of State Built Heritage to grant them private parking at the Abdoulaye Wade stadium in Diamniadio. But this alternative does not excite the judokas, starting with the president of the FSJDA. For Me Ngom, Diamniadio is “very far away and landlocked”. Which makes Souleymane Boun Daouda Diop say that agreeing to go to Diamniadio is “contributing to the assassination of Senegalese judo”.
However, the budokas do not reject the idea of leaving the current site which houses their dojo. However, they require that the resettlement location be accessible and welcoming. “If the State tells us: I find you somewhere where you can exercise without there being any interruption to your program in the national and international calendar, we will leave. Otherwise, we cannot leave because we do not know where to go,” declared the president of the FSJDA, who reviewed the consequences that an eviction without accompanying measures could have on the discipline.
This is the disruption that this could have on the preparation program of young athletes for the YOG-2026.
“This is where the senior, junior and cadet national teams train, minijudo, with more than 200 practitioners registered here or in surrounding schools. Today, we signed an agreement with the French Judo Federation which gave us a French coach accompanied by a Senegalese coach to be able to achieve the objective of winning many medals at the 2026 Youth Olympic Games.
The other concern of the feds relates to the material stored in their depot worth “at least 150 million” and which has not yet been received by the Ministry of Sports. “If you take it out, immediately, the Fij will take action because it is a diversion of the destination of the material”
For now, the feds are insisting on raising awareness among the authorities about the importance of the national dojo.
“We are launching a heartfelt cry to the authorities, starting with the President of the Republic, telling them to listen to us. This dojo belongs to martial arts. Our elders fought at the time to have this dojo which was an abandoned Parcel Post warehouse. They developed it with the support of the ministers at the time to make it a temple for judo. It was the State itself that gave this temple to judo and martial arts,” recalled Me Ngom.
He also announced the establishment of a monitoring committee which will take charge of all the recommendations for good monitoring
2024-01-13 15:22:13
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