It was something many Senegalese thought they would never see: Karim Wade, the all-powerful former "super minister" and son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, arrested at his home and put behind bars in Dakar's infamous Rebeuss prison.
As is the case with many sons of former African heads of state, when his father lost power in elections in March last year, investigations by the new government followed. In Wade junior's case, it was about alleged corrupt dealings.
Analysts say the incarceration of Wade, on April 17, and similar cases like the one in France involving the flamboyant Teodorin Obiang Nguema, son of Equatorial Guinea's President Theodoro Obiang Nguema, will serve as a warning to other members of Africa's first families.
For years, the young Wade controlled much of the state business in Senegal, initially as an adviser to his father and since 2009 as the minister of international relations, regional development, aviation and infrastructure.
Several years ago, a South African business delegation visited Senegal for meetings but on the eve of their departure they had an unscheduled appointment with a certain "Karim". "Everyone we talked with here said we can't do anything without going through the president's son," the leader of the department of trade and industry delegation told me.
Friends and cronies
Wade is accused of stealing more than €1-billion from the state, allegedly siphoned off through his control over the airports company, the Dakar port and property schemes. Wade denies having had anything to do with these companies, officially run by his friends and cronies.
However, some say Wade is the victim of a witch-hunt. Last week, about 2500 of his supporters marched in Dakar to ask for his release.
Francis Kpatinde, a veteran journalist who has written extensively on the Wade family, believes Wade's prosecution is a way for President Macky Sall to get back at his enemies. "Macky Sall is targeting Karim because he can't get to his father," he says. The former president now lives with his French wife in their home in Versailles, south of Paris.
Kpatinde says the attacks on Wade junior have been tainted by racism and accusations that Karim, who worked in London before, is not a true Senegalese because he doesn't speak the local language.
Wade is not the only son in trouble now that dad is no longer in power. Others, like Henry Banda, son of former Zambian president Rupiah Banda, named in a court case linking his father to an oil scandal, feel the heat when there is a democratic changeover in their countries (See "Interpol quits Henry Banda case").
"The problem we have in Africa is how to prosecute the all-powerful," says Martin Ewi, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies' International Crimes in Africa Programme. "It is a real challenge to the independence of the justice system."
Manipulated
The oversight role of Parliament in these cases is also not understood, especially in Francophone Africa, says Ewi. "In many countries, these structures are manipulated by the head of state."
In Senegal, the National Assembly did try to call Wade junior to account for large sums of money that went missing during an Organisation of Islamic Co-operation summit, of which he was in charge.
His father, then still president, was so furious that he changed the Constitution and shortened the mandate of the speaker of the National Assembly, who was none other than Sall.
A more successful solution is probably for external states to prosecute them. Paris-based Africa specialist Seidik Abba says the landmark decision by French courts to charge Equatorial Guinea's Teodorin Obiang Nguema will certainly have great symbolic value. An international arrest warrant is out for him.
"It will make others think twice about embezzling state money," says Abba.