Every so often I pop open the champagne, plonk myself on the sofa and drink to this great, good and crime-ridden country of ours. I did that on Saturday.

I was celebrating the fact that I am not Senegalese. You see, they had riots in Senegal on Friday evening.

They rioted after the constitutional court approved a bid by President Abdoulaye Wade to stand for re-election on February 26. They have a point. The 85-year-old Wade has been in power for 12 years and wants to run for two more terms.

He is using a dirty little argument to stay on. You see, Senegal's constitution was changed in 2001 and in 2008 to prevent leaders serving more than two terms. Wade's argument is that his term as president before the constitutional change should not count.

So his new bid is like him being a fresh new daisy in the presidential game and he can run for two more terms from this year.

The constitutional court also saw fit to refuse Youssou N'Dour, the world-famous singer, the right to run for president, apparently because he did not have the required 10000 signatures of support. Every Senegalese knows that N'Dour can secure 10000 signatures in his sleep.

I know Wade well. In the early 2000s the loquacious Senegalese president was to be found on every international platform with our then president, Thabo Mbeki, evangelising about the arrival of a new, democratic crop of leaders in Africa. They fought for the West to partner them in this African renaissance.

The suave Mbeki charmed the English-speaking world, while Wade wooed the French, the Russians and the Chinese.

Nigerian President (at the time) Olusegun Obasanjo was the third partner and he represented a country that was truly walking the tortuous road back to peace and prosperity. He was the living example of change in Africa.

Wade, a former university professor, could talk the hind legs off a donkey. Once, at a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos and sharing a stage with Mbeki and several other African leaders, he banged on for ages about infrastructure projects.

Then he would speak about leaders who liked to cling to power. He had no time for them, he said. The world applauded.

And here we are today. Wade is behaving exactly the way so many of the leaders he used to condemn behaved. He is clinging on to power by hook and by crook. He won't leave. This is the same man who said he would vacate his seat when his time came.

Then, in July, he did an about-turn, saying in the Wolof language: "Ma waxoon waxeet." It means: "I said it, I [can] take it back."

Wade's story is a tragedy for a country that is unique in West Africa: Senegal has not had a coup since the end of the colonial era. What Wade achieved on Friday, with the rubber-stamp of a callow constitutional court, is equivalent to a coup.

This on top of the fact that his son serves in his cabinet in an inflated portfolio, while his daughter is a special adviser to him. Corruption is rampant and spending on monuments is lavish in a country where unemployment stands at 48%.

Wade is not the only African leader clinging to power.

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, 70 and in power for 33 years, changed his country's constitution to abolish direct presidential elections.

This has given Dos Santos a neat whizz: he will now get in through his party, over which he has total control, rather than being seen as a man who is clinging to power.

He could be around for another 10 years!

The man walked into the presidency in 1979 and is still there. Call that democracy? Only in Angola.

Oh, and in Uganda, where Yoweri Museveni has been in power since the mid-1980s. And in Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe will win yet another violent rigged election this year.

South Africa is still pretty much in the pound seats in the democracy game. There are many things to worry about, yet we are a vibrant democracy where the rule of law still holds.

Our president, Jacob Zuma, faces a healthy and robust challenge inside his own party. His predecessor, Mbeki, faced the same sort of challenge and lost. We have something good going here.

Africa also has something good going. Dictatorships are diminishing. The Wades and Mugabes and Musevenis and Dos Santoses are becoming fewer and fewer.

Democracy is, however, not something that is won and enjoyed. It is fought for.

That is what the Senegalese are doing by standing against the theft of their democracy by Wade.

And so all African leaders need to stand up on the side of the people of Senegal and tell their friend Wade to leave - and leave now.

That's something I would pop a champagne cork for.