My dear compatriots,
I humbly beg you to receive my exhortation to mediate with respect our living together.
I salute with respect and consideration the memory of all these great compatriots who took part in the national conference and who bequeathed to us the values of freedom, democracy and human rights to which our people remain attached.
I salute with no less consideration all my predecessors who held the presidential office, in particular the late General Mathieu Kérékou and my Dean Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo, who left us a united and peaceful Benin as a legacy.
It is filled with the spirit all these patriots that I take the floor to face my responsibilities.
Indeed, on this eve of our independence day, I cannot continue to keep silent in front of a wounded people. Benin, our common homeland suffers from the political, democratic, institutional, economic and social exclusion of its children.
Children of Benin, Dear Compatriots, how could we on August 1, 2023 bow before our dead? How can we sing our heroes and project ourselves into the future when so much tragedy and misery shake our homes?
Our children, promoted to a bright future, have been languishing for more than two years in the unhealthy prisons of rupture with the unpardonable sin of having dared to exercise their freedom to think, to demonstrate, to refuse arbitrariness and to demand democratic and peaceful governance.
What joy can live in our hearts when Minister Reckya Madougou and Professor Joël AÏVO are deprived of their liberty and heavily sentenced for having committed a lese-majeste crime , for wanting to run for the highest office in a supposedly democratic country? I cannot forget the hundreds of young pupils as students, who also continue to languish in prison for their opinions.
What are we going to do at the Amazon Square while the worthy sons of Benin, following the example of this woman, have been forced into exile for several years? The Governance of peace invites us to restore their freedom, because a life without freedom has no meaning.
Moreover, we cannot conceal the ambient misery, which is a consequence of the destructuring of the social fabric, the monopoly of production, and even of the factors of production. In this respect, the situation of the soya, cotton and cashews producers cotton is illustrative.
In view of so much infamy and stigma, Independence Day and particularly that of August 1, 2023 is no longer one. Far from paving the way to the usual festivities, beloved compatriots, let us make this first of August 2023 a day of meditation, introspection on our living together and intense prayers.
To this end, I would like to remind the people of Benin of these words of my message of April 5, 2016 “We are a great people, a great nation whose genius is expressed with force when we are together. »
In the same vein, I call for peace for our country and for a national political dialogue that should bring together the daughters and sons of Benin to peacefully resolve the contradictions which are ours and to put an end to exclusion in all areas. This, dear compatriots, should be the epitome of our meditation on August 1, 2023.
What else can we do collectively, after the meetings at the Presidential Palace, the requests to the Heads of State and Government of our continent and of the world, the Chancelleries, the religious denominations, the chiefdoms, the civil society, the youth and women even after the decision of the United Nations Working Group to obtain the release of our imprisoned fellow citizens and the return of our exiles?
Dear compatriots,
At this difficult time in our history, I trust you with your endurance and your devotion to the waking state. Let us commit our burdens to our Lord and Savior to take care of them. It is the least that can be said, because the present exclusive electoral institutional framework constitutes a big rock under the feet of the Benin people whose ambition is to experience the general elections of 2026 in popular jubilation because they will have been inclusive. If these elections continue to be exclusive, how can a new page of lives without freedom be prevented?
First, the sovereign people must face up to their primary responsibilities in terms of the culture of dialogue and then attract additional support from the international community with a view to a real governance of peace in our country. Let’s put an end to our collective hypocrisy and complicity. Let us resuscitate our culture of ethics and morals to prevent the sinking of the Republic. A single swallow cannot make the springtime of a nation.
On the spiritual level, let us entrust our burdens to the Almighty who from heaven will heal our country and each one of us. Let us face our responsibilities and persevere in our prayers to implore our Father, whose Kindness is endless and whose Mercy is unlimited.
Glory to God !
May God bless Benin, our dear common homeland.
May the Glory and Power of God the Father, the Grace of God the Holy Son and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us.
Amen!
Peace of heart to all of you, my dear compatriots.
Dr Thomas Boni YAYI
Former President of Benin
Former President of the African Union
Former President of UMOEA(West African Economic and Monetary Union)
Former President of the Least Advanced Countries (LACs)
ECOWAS Mediator in Guinea
