Senegal’s military chief calls cybersecurity a “collective priority” at Dakar conference

The Senegal Defence Institute usually trains officers. On Friday, October 16, the war college at the Bel-Air camp hosted researchers, lawyers, AI engineers and security vendors instead. Vice Admiral Oumar Wade, chief of the general staff, opened a conference titled “Cybersecurity, cyber defence and artificial intelligence: strategic stakes for Senegal and the Armed Forces”.

« Building a safe, resilient and trustworthy digital environment must be a collective priority, mobilising every government department, businesses, training and research institutions, and citizens. »

Vice Admiral Oumar Wade, chief of the general staff, quoted by APA (translated from French)

The conference was organised by the Directorate of Signals and IT of the Armed Forces (DTIA), which is celebrating fifty years of the signals corps. The day before, at the Colonel Mamadou Dieng camp in Yeumbeul, the military chief unveiled a commemorative plaque after a parade.

From the Sahel to foreign clouds

The programme published by the organisers was broad. It listed Colonel Babacar Diagne, head of the DTIA, on the digitisation of the battlefield, and General Jean-Luc Diène, a former head of foreign intelligence, on threats in the Sahel. Panels were to bring together Professor Djiby Sow of Cheikh Anta Diop University and Georges Ataya of the Belgian Cybersecurity Coalition on state cyber resilience. Colonel Aly Mime, director general of the presidency’s cipher and information systems security agency, was listed for the military cyber defence session. Another debate addressed governments’ reliance on foreign cloud providers. Published reports do not say who actually spoke.

A private company alongside the military

Africa Cyber Network is not a public body. It is a Senegalese limited company selling training, certifications (Cisco, Huawei, EC-Council and others), audits, penetration testing and security operations centre services. One of its co-founders, retired colonel Ibrahima Diouf, was himself on the programme. Of the partner logos displayed on its website, Huawei’s is the only one clearly identifiable. On Saturday, at the officers’ mess, a business-to-business day was to bring vendors of firewalls, SOC services, drones and cyber ranges together with public buyers. The conference’s 200 seats were free, with registration.

August’s law still awaits its decrees

The military chief’s appeal comes two months after lawmakers unanimously passed Law No. 25/2026 on critical information infrastructure. It creates a National Cybersecurity Authority, requires public data to be hosted in Senegal and allows fines of up to 800 million CFA francs. As of October 18, we had found no public record of the implementing decrees, nor of anyone appointed to head the new authority. No concrete measures were announced at the end of the conference. Africa Cyber Network says it wants to make the event annual, with no date yet set for 2027.