Why All African Leaders Should Aspire to be This Great Man
By: Jax Hudur
Tags: Colonialism, History, Politics, Leadership, Africa

Why All African Leaders Should Aspire to be This Great Man

A leader ahead of his time

Thomas Noel Isidore Sankara was born on the 21st of December 1949 in Yako, French Upper Volta, later renamed Burkina Faso. His father worked for the local colonial government. Sankara’s family enjoyed a life of privilege, thanks to his father’s employment, however, he was one of ten siblings, making it was too expensive for the family to support him through higher education. The military, with an attached scholarship, was an attractive offer and nineteen-year-old Sankara. Like many other contemporary African leaders, such as J.J. Rawlings from Ghana, Gaddafi from Libya, and Mengistu from Ethiopia, he joined the ranks of the military to escape poverty and seize the alternatives it provided.

For Sankara, it worked out in the end, and his rise to the top was fast. At the age of twenty, he was sent to Madagascar for officer training where upon his return, he found fame in a border war between his country and Mali. This catapulted him to the top, though he later came to realize that the war was useless and unjust.

Africa in the 1980s was a playground for the competing superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Military coups were rife and the Cold War offered prime conditions for revolutions. Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Libya, Sudan, and other African States had gone through multiple regime changes. Thomas Sankara’s Uppervolta has suffered a series of government ousting that plagued the continent. Sankara became the prime minister in 1983 but his advocacy for reforms resulted in his subsequent arrest and this enraged young officers led by Blaise Compaore, a close friend at the time, which led to the overthrow of the government. The military then decided to put Sankara in the highest office.

Sankara became president on August 4th, 1983 at the age of thirty-three and ruled for four years. His achievements in that short span of time put current serving African heads of States to shame. Those achievements include:

Sankara walked the talk, he lived modestly and often cycled to his work. This was unheard of in Africa. At the time of his death, all he left behind was a house with a mortgage, a broken fridge, and a couple of guitars.

He renamed the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso (“Land of the Upright People”) and wrote the country’s national anthem.

to (“Land of the Upright People”) and wrote the country’s national anthem. He started to eradicate corruption whilst fighting social injustice.

Government officials were forced to swap their luxury Mercedes cars for the cheapest available car in the market at the time, a Renault. No first-class flights, officials had to fly economy.

Agrarian reforms put an end to the power structures of the feudal powers of traditional chiefs over the farmers. This reform eradicated hunger from Burkina Faso and led the country to achieve food sufficiency.

2.5 million people were vaccinated in one week.

Sankara refused praise and pomposity. No pictures of his were hung on Government buildings, he scoffed at personal praise and songs about him — unlike his peers.

He encouraged local produce. In an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa (his last meeting), Sankara proudly praised his compatriots to the present delegates in an address “ I am not here for a fashion show. But I and my delegation are clothed by our tailors and cotton produced by our farmers”, he told them.

Starting with himself, ministers and leading civil servants had to take a pay cut.

In a time when women were invisible in the political scene, he encouraged them to participate and join in high civil service posts and the army.

Ahead of his peers at the time, he put an end to female genital mutilation (FGM), polygamy, and forced marriages. Women were also allowed for the first time to divorce. Men also had to give half of their paychecks to their wives.

France’s strong grip and the threat Sankara posed

Colonial France, like its European counterparts, knew that colonialism couldn’t be sustained for long so they had to get ahead of it. France came up with a strategy of colonial continuation by other means, the creation of economic ties. African colonies were free but only in appearance.

The plan was simple in its implementation. All the African States had to do was just sign two secret cooperation agreements to get their independence. France, however, got privileged access to raw materials and offered military protection to the newly independent States. This gave France control.

The former colonies had no say in their monetary affairs, military, and education. These remained in the goodwill of whatever policy France decided on. It was this control that Sankara’s free-thinking and unrestrained rhetoric threatened. He posed a real threat to the status quo. France and its African allies simply could not let Sankara’s thinking spread to the rest of the region.

Assassination

On a typical Thursday afternoon, on the 15th of October 1987, shots rung in the central parliament of the Land of the Upright People, Burkina Faso. “Stay here, it’s me they want”, he said to his colleagues, and with raised hands walked towards the door. With no words exchanged, he was shot multiple times. By the end of this murder spree, thirteen people together with the head of State, Captain Thomas Sankara, were murdered in cold blood.

This was, by all means, a textbook assassination, a bloody takeover. The alleged mastermind of this twisted plot was none other than Sankara’s best friend, Blaise Compaore, who would go on to rule Burkina Faso for twenty-seven years. No crime, no perpetrators, there was no case.

It was nothing short of Caesar’s moment with Brutus but unlike Caesar, Sankara well very knew that his end was coming. He said in an interview “I find myself like a cyclist going up a steep slope with precipices on either side, who will fall if he stops pedaling. There is no choice but to keep on pedaling. If he stops, he will fall. So, to remain true to myself, I have to stay on the same track”, the journalist then asks him if he feels isolated in African. Sankara, looking straight into his eyes, replies “Not understood, not liked”.

This was a man who knew his fate was sealed.

Several people confirm this epiphany. Captain Boukari Kabore, an army commander and a loyal ally asked Sankara for permission to arrest Blaise Compaore as he had intelligence that Blaise was in the final stages of an assassination plot. His stern reply was “No. Friendship cannot be betrayed, we won’t betray them even if they want to betray us”.

Jean Ziggler’s interview offers another insight into Sankara’s knowledge of the coming end. Ziggler was a United Nations rapporteur and he states that

“Sankara and I talked all night and I vividly remember this. I told him that the 8th of October is the 20th anniversary of Che Guevara’s assassination and we talked all night long about Che and the assassination. He looked at me and said, ‘Che died at the age of 39. Am I going to last till I reach 39?’ He had a premonition.”

On the day of his murder, Sankara was thirty-seven years old.

After having been in power for twenty-seven years, his alleged murderer, Blaise Compaore stepped down due to protests. An international arrest warrant was issued for his role in the Sankara assassination but he has since become an Ivorian citizen to beat the extradition efforts.

Thomas Sankara’s riveting story and its tragic end have endeared him to Africans and revolutionaries all around the world. Will Blaise Compaore ever face justice? No one knows what the future holds, however, Sankara’s ghost will forever haunt him.

References

1.Lavallée, Emmanuelle; Lochard, Julie; The empire strikes back: French‐African trade after independence

2.Michael Wilkins; The Death of Thomas Sankara and the Rectification of the People’s Revolution in Burkina Faso

3.Maja Bovcon; Françafrique and regime theory

4.Richard Joseph; The Gaullist legacy: patterns of French neo‐colonialism

5.Tony Chafer; Chirac and ‘la Françafrique’: No Longer a Family Affair

6.Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man(2006), documentary film.