2010-04-03
DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal prepared to inaugurate its giant "African Renaissance" monument on Saturday, brushing aside complaints that the personal project of President Abdoulaye Wade was a waste of money and un-Islamic.

One imam in the mainly Muslim West African state issued a fatwa on Friday condemning the statue of a man, woman and infant as idolatrous, a charge dismissed by Wade allies.

Slightly bigger than New York's Statue of Liberty, the $28 million copper monument perched on a hill overlooking the capital Dakar has been criticised as a waste of money in a country with crumbling infrastructure and welfare provision.

But its supporters argue that Africa, many of whose states are still struggling to find their feet a half a century after independence, needs symbols of hope for the future.

"Every architectural work sparks controversies -- look at the Eiffel Tower in Paris," pro-Wade senator Ahmed Bachir Kounta told Reuters of the 19th-century structure labelled by early critics as an expensive eyesore.

Wade, who at 83 has confirmed he will seek reelection in 2012, has invited around 30 African and other heads of state to the 1500 GMT ceremony, with veteran U.S. civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and U.S.-Senegalese rapper Akon also expected.

RISING COST OF LIVING

Many Dakar residents, struggling with increasingly frequent power cuts, disintegrating city roads and scarce formal employment, have mixed feelings about the monument.

"In 2010, Africa has to re-born," said 36-year-old Thierno Dienj, a supporter of Wade's rival socialists who was among the crowd at a small anti-government rally on Saturday.

"But this monument doesn't take into account the rising cost of living here," he said, repeating a common complaint over price hikes in basic foodstuffs and public transport.

The notion of an "African Renaissance" came to the fore in the 1990s amid optimism the continent was shaking off the effects of colonialism and Cold War-era meddling by superpowers.

Leaders such as Wade and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki picked up the idea and used it to drive projects such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an economic development programme with modest results so far.