The failed visit of Sidiki Diabaté and Hamed Bakayako to Mohammed VI

In a video of the Matin Bonheur programme posted on the Facebook page of RTI1, the young artist and kora player, Sidiki Diabaté, made revelations about his relationship with the late Ivorian Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko (who died on 10 March 2021 in Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, editor’s note), particularly about their last conversation. The two had planned to visit King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

Sidiki Diabaté revealed that his last conversation with the late Ivorian Prime Minister, Hamed Bakayoko, was over the phone while he was in prison for physically abusing his ex-girlfriend Mariam Sow, known as « Mamasita ». It was with great emotion that the young Malian artist spoke of the man he considers a father, « HamBak ».

« I was in prison, I received a phone call. I pick up the phone and it’s Hamed Bakayoko calling me. He told me ‘my son, it is the men who go to prison. Be dignified and walk with your head held high. Everything has an end, it will end soon. We are going to organise a nice holiday in Assinie (a locality in the south-east of Côte d’Ivoire and belonging to the department of Adiaké, editor’s note), then we will go to the King of Morocco’, he said.

The young singer also added that Ivorian Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko was a good and generous man, who had always been quick to help others. « HamBak was simply friends with many artists from the continent, whom he regularly invited for private concerts in his various residences in Abidjan and Assinie.

However, with some of them, Hamed Bakayoko had a father and son relationship, like those he had with Sidiki Diabaté and before him, the late Arafat DJ.