The rumour of a riot at the PPA, formerly Abidjan Detention and Correction House (MACA) was circulating in the city of Abidjan all day on 14 April 2025. A statement from the Directorate of the Prison Administration has just come out: there have been riots. Yes. Many people were injured. Also, many voices have been raised to alert on the fragile balance between prisoners’ rights and prison authority.

Yet another riot
The recent tensions at the Abidjan Prison Centre have caused many injuries. A few months ago, it was the prison of Bouaké, second city in the country, which was boiling. What began as vandalism quickly turned into a clear attempt to take control of the prison by inmates. This latest riot has revived a crucial debate: that of the authority of the state within the walls of Ivorian prisons.

A prompt official release
In an official statement dated 14 April 2025, the prison administration of the largest prison in Côte d’Ivoire confirmed that several facilities had been destroyed by detainees. Indeed, the latter oppose a new measure regulating the management of common spaces. This reform, implemented in the context of the fight against the introduction and circulation of drugs in prisons, aimed to restrict access to the central court, which has become a real crossroads for all kinds of drug trafficking. According to the press release, there are no deaths. In addition, 12 detainees have been injured. According to the same communiqué, order was restored thanks to the joint intervention of prison officers, the police and the gendarmerie.

Rise of gangs
But beyond the facts, this new episode of violence highlights a broader problem that the prison administration is struggling to manage. In February, similar riots broke out at the House of Detention and Correction in Bouaké. The fact that these riots are taking place in the country’s two major prisons highlights something very disturbing, namely the rise of insubordination in prison and the groups of men who, Alongside the guards, truly manage – or should we say – rule the country’s prisons. For some observers, this situation results from a growing imbalance between the rights granted to detainees and the means of control left to prison officers. “The freedoms granted, although essential in a state governed by the rule of law, end up conferring disproportionate power on prisoners who are sometimes organised and able to defy the prison authority itself,” said one prison worker.

Prison guard: a profession under pressure
The profession of prison officer, often invisible, appears today as one of the most exposed but also of the most ungrateful. Faced with increasingly numerous and difficult to supervise prison populations, these professionals are demanding more than press releases: they are asking for a real revaluation, as is happening in several sectors within the country’s administration. Among the options mentioned: a clear return of authority to prison staff, their systematic association with decisions impacting security, and better administrative and legal protection. Because today, many people say they are on their own.

A national implementation strategy
These incidents, repeatedly, reveal a fundamental problem: in order to deal with such riots in the future, a coherent, national prison strategy based on firmness, respect for the hierarchy and the restoration of legitimate authority is needed. It is not a question of denying the rights of detainees, but of reminding them that these rights must be exercised within the framework of a clear and respected republican order. Indeed, the prison cannot become a space of non-law. However, it must remain a place of justice, rehabilitation, but also authority.

The Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) won the majority of Ivorian town halls and regional councils, after the double election on Saturday, according to the Independent Electoral Commission which proclaimed the final results on Monday, September 04, 2023.

It is a tidal wave in favor of the Gathering of Houphouëtistes for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), the party of the president of Alassane Ouattara after the municipal and regional elections of September 2, 2023. The party obtained 125 municipalities out of 201 and 25 regions out of 30. We remember the victory of Prime Minister Patrick Achi, in the Mé, that of Mamadou Touré, the Minister of Youth in Haut-Sassandra; the victory of Anne Ouloto, the Minister of Public Service, in the Cavally (west), that of the minister Director of cabinet of the presidency, Fidèle Sarrassoro in the Poro (north).

The two main opposition parties, the African People’s Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI) and the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), allies in many localities, are gaining a region, Nawa, and ten communes like Lakota and Bloléquin. Although it has fewer communes compared to the 2018 election, the PDCI of Henri Konan Bédié remains in its fiefs: Yamoussoukro, Daoukro, Toumodi, the Iffou region or in Aries. Outside the alliance, Laurent Gbagbo’s PPA-CI gained two communes.

“Acceptable” Participation
The Ivorian Popular Front loses Moronou, the stronghold of Pascal Affi N’Guessan and comes out of this double election without any elected representatives.

The turnout remains substantially the same in the 2018 elections: it amounts to 44.61% for the regional election and 36.18% for the municipal elections. A rate that the President of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) considers “acceptable”.

Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo will not be able to participate in his country’s local elections scheduled for 02 September 2023. And for good reason, He is still removed from the electoral list published Saturday, May 20, 2023, a decision described as “unacceptable provocation” by his party. While Gbagbo was acquitted by international justice of crimes against humanity committed during the bloody post-election crisis of 2010-2011, he remains under a 20-year prison sentence in Côte d’Ivoire for the “robbery” the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in 2011. This conviction, pronounced in 2018 while he was imprisoned in The Hague, had resulted in the loss of his civil and political rights and thus his removal from the electoral lists.

And the pardon granted by President Alassane Ouattara last year in this case does not change this status. On Saturday, during the publication of the electoral list in Abidjan, Sébastien Dano Djédjé, an executive of the African Peoples Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), Gbagbo’s party, denounced an “unjust” decision. This calls into question the credibility of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). The electoral process is losing credibility,’ he added, before leaving the ceremony with the party delegation.

“We are not picking on Laurent Gbagbo. There is a court decision that is not the work of the CIS. The CIS is simply carrying out what the law says,’ said Commission President Kuibiert Coulibaly, stating that “11,000 people” have been deprived of their civil and political rights.

On Saturday afternoon, the PPA-CI held a press conference to denounce an “unacceptable provocation”. Such stubbornness on the part of the Ivorian regime poses serious risks to peace and social cohesion,’ said Justin Koné Katinan, spokesman for Mr Gbagbo’s party. This omission from the electoral list “constitutes a casus belli”, he added.

The PPA-CI is based in particular on a decision of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights that ordered in 2020 the reinstatement of the former Ivorian president on the electoral list. The party authorities will meet shortly to consider possible remedies. Complaints can be made to the IEC until 8 June.

After the 2020 presidential election, which saw the re-election of Alassane Ouattara for a controversial third term and where violence had caused 85 deaths and 500 injuries, Côte d’Ivoire experienced a period of calm in the political climate. The 2021 legislative elections were held in calm and former president Laurent Gbagbo was able to return to Côte d’Ivoire in June 2021, after his acquittal by the ICC. On two occasions, he even met with President Ouattara to “describe the political climate” in Côte d’Ivoire.

But the last few weeks have been marked by tensions between the two opposing sides during the post-election crisis of 2010-2011, which caused 3,000 deaths.

In particular, the PPA-CI accused the authorities of “exploiting the justice system” after the arrest in February of 26 of its activists for “disturbing public order” on the sidelines of a demonstration in Abidjan. Sentenced in the first instance to two years in prison, they were given two years of suspended sentence on appeal.

Some eight million voters are called to the polls on September 2 in Côte d’Ivoire to renew municipal and regional councils. The next presidential election is scheduled for 2025.