Senegal Imams Campaign Against Giant Statue

Imams in Senegal have begun a concerted campaign against a giant statue being built in Dakar.

They are using Friday prayers to denounce it as idolatrous and a waste of money.

The Monument to the African Renaissance is a pet project of Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and will be bigger than the Statue of Liberty when completed

The main controversy has been the cost - at $27 million (£16.6 million) it is a big outlay for a poor country.

It is also on questionable aesthetic ground.

The imams are tapping into a strong vein of discontent with the giant statue. Depicting a muscular man holding aloft a child and sweeping a woman along behind him, it is pure socialist realism - and not very African.

Imams agreed a text for Friday sermons quoting the Koran and the Hadith (Islamic sayings), which forms a denunciation of the idolatrous nature of the giant structure.

The protests do come a bit late though, for the statue is almost finished. The new campaign is an escalation in a long war of words between imams and President Wade.

What sticks in the throats of many Senegalese though is President Wade's plan to charge visitors and pocket a share of the takings himself. The president says he helped design the statue, so he should share some of the revenue.