Abidjan, a city switched to football mode

Since January 13, Ivory Coast has hosted the 34th edition of the African Football Cup of Nations. Next Sunday, the final will be played in “Babi”, the nickname of Abidjan, a city with boundless energy that is evident at first glance.

“Akwaba”, it is the first word that visitors hear when arriving in Abidjan. He means “Welcome”, or rather “safe arrival” as they say here. And he says everything about the desire of the Ivorians to receive the best for this edition of the African Cup of Nations, this “CAN of hospitality” which expected 1.5 million visitors. This “akwaba” is full of sincerity, no one can doubt it and it does not date from the start of the CAN. Dalanda is a lawyer and she defends this idea: “I am Franco-Guinean and I have lived in Abidjan for five years. I have always known this hospitality. The Ivorians are generous. Here, you can only feel at home.”

This sense of hospitality is undoubtedly natural, but it can also undoubtedly be explained by migratory flows: Côte d’Ivoire is the country where the most immigrants in West Africa and at least 22% of the population is of foreign origin. Contrary to certain ideas conveyed by the European extreme right, there are many more Africans who migrate from one country to another on their continent than towards Europe. In Côte d’Ivoire, since the 1960s and the Ivorian economic “miracle”, the majority of immigrants have arrived from Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. During the African Cup, this may have given rise to a few scuffles: the quarter-final between Ivory Coast and Mali, for example, was played in Bouaké, the country’s second city which also happens to be the main drop-off point for Malians in Ivory Coast. The success of the Elephants has sometimes been experienced by some as a victory “outside”even if the stadium was entirely committed to the Orange cause.

Nearly $1.5 billion invested in infrastructure

But if the Ivorian people are charming and welcoming, one area still escapes their benevolence: the roads. They often remain poorly maintained and crisscrossed by “France, goodbye”, these cars, buses or trucks that have reached the end of their journey and are living their last lives here. But the fight against “incivism on the roads” gains ground andAccording to the Ministry of Transport, the number of road deaths increased from 1,614 in 2021 to 1,051 last year. A 2018 decree now prohibits imports of vehicles over 5 years old. Since March 2023, the points-based license has been introduced and on the most dangerous routes, notably in Abidjan, cameras and radars allow – in theory – direct fines: the driver at fault receives an SMS and can pay online. The message from the Ministry of Transport to raise awareness of video verbalization is appropriate: “If you drive fast, VAR will catch up with you.”

Traffic jams due to the CAN or not, you need a certain organization to travel in “Babi” and in the rest of the country: the journeys are long and we do not calculate them in kilometers, but in hours. If the road is good, the journey will be short. If the route is more “complicated”, it doesn’t matter if it is only a hundred kilometers long, it could take you hours to reach your goal. As with every major international competition, certain voices have sometimes been raised in Côte d’Ivoire to contest the usefulness of a particular stadium or the price of another, while nearly 1.5 billion dollars have been invested in total in infrastructure projects. But never to regret that the CAN forced us to build or renovate roads.

Thanks to the African Cup, for example, the “coastal”, 350 km road which connects Abidjan to the large port of San Pedro has been completely redone, halving the travel time between the two cities. Between Yamoussoukro, the administrative capital, and Bouaké, the country’s second city, the highway has been extended and is now lit. A long strip of asphalt worthy of the most beautiful highways. And in Abidjan, where traffic jams are proverbial, a fourth bridge was built and the construction site of the “Y4” ring road which bypasses the city center was partly delivered before the start of the competition. The trend is therefore quite clearly towards improvement: the Ivorian road network is still 30% smaller than the French one, but its quality is increasing. We could say that Ivorians have a visceral relationship with their roads and that a new road is a bit like a new artery that irrigates the country.

“Grailla” for everyone

To fully understand Abidjan, you must know that the city touches the heart, the body and also the stomach. Because the food, the “dabali” where the “grailla”, food in nouchi, the local slang, is a central issue. A real subject, a compulsory discipline if you want to obtain your Ivorian diploma. Here, you can eat everywhere, for all prices and at any time: because of the heat, people live until very late and many restaurants are open all night, notably in Marcory, the Lebanese district of the city.

Traditional and family dishes like “garba” (fried tuna, attiéké – cassava semolina – and chili) constitute the basis of Ivorian meals, for relatively modest prices. Regardless of social class, everyone eats it. The less fortunate can venture to the markets of Treichville or Yopougon to eat a skewer for 50 cents, but they must have a (much) stronger stomach than the average. Like everywhere in the world, the rich do not eat like the poor. But here, the differences are even more striking, undoubtedly because the wage gaps are much greater, the largest in West Africa, in fact. In Abidjan, a resident of Abobo will never be able to eat in a restaurant in Cocody, the most chic district of the city, and even less make the trip to Grand-Bassam to treat himself to grilled sea bream in a restaurant on the edge of the city. sea.

On the other hand, he will be able to talk about food, which in Abidjan is undoubtedly the second national sport behind football. It’s Rachida, a cook in a restaurant in the residential district of Biétry, who says it: “We talk a lot about what we’re going to eat, where we’re going to eat it and who we’re going to eat it with. It’s important. It’s part of our energy.” And in Abidjan, there is energy in everything. “Babi” could carry away even the most reluctant. Its inhabitants give it incredible power and to its visitors, the feeling that the city never stops, of running, of talking, that it lives everything to the fullest. As if every minute could be the last.