On September 30, 2022, a coup d’état took place in Burkina Faso. Paul-Henri Damiba, an interim president who had come to power via junta, only 8 months prior, was deemed unable to address the ongoing Sahel insurgency in the country and ousted.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré replaced his former colleague, President Damiba, and became the world’s youngest serving head of state – at only 34.
Among the first steps taken by President Traoré would be the appointment of Kyélem de Tambèla as the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso. Tambèla, unlike most figures in Burkinabé politics, is a familiar face in the popular consciousness of this small landlocked state.
Tambèla, as a student in France during the 1980s, founded the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution to defend and finance the struggle waged by the Burkinabé masses under Thomas Sankara – affiliated with communists at the time.
Tambèla, as an lawyer and author, would publish his magnum opus under the title, “Thomas Sankara and the Revolution in Burkina Faso: An Experience of Self-Centered Development” – his own detailed account of the Burkinabé Revolution as led by Thomas Sankara.
While invoking Karl Marx and Frantz Fanon in the academic realm, Tambèla would initiate his premiership with 50% cuts to the salaries of government ministers, reiterating, “Burkina Faso cannot develop outside the line drawn by Thomas Sankara.”
Meanwhile, President Traoré himself, refusing to take any presidential salary, remains on the same income he had as a military captain, in order to “show this spirit of sacrifice which must inhabit each Burkinabé in the current situation of our country.”
Simultaneously, President Traoré continues to follow in the footsteps of Mali under President Assimi Goïta – whose decision to withdraw Mali, as another puppet in the French pré carré, is causing shockwaves in the region.
The liberation of Mali from its historically colonial relationship with France, represents an alternative future for states in the Francafrique. Additionally, Mali has taken measures to ban French state media such as France 24 and Radio France International until further notice.
This policy has held sway in Burkina Faso, with a correspondent from France 24 summoned before the Burkinabé Council of Superior Communication.
By the start of 2023, Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo, the Minister of Communication, confirmed that Burkina Faso had given French troops one month to evacuate the country, ending the agreement signed between the two states in 2018. This was fulfilled by February 20, 2023.
The administration ushered in by President Traoré has emphasized that while these actions will not end diplomatic relations with France, the approach of this new government represents a new dynamic and changing order – internationally, as well as regionally.
President Traoré supports radical federation of African states with the phrase “United States of Africa” entering popular lingo on the streets Ouagadougou.
Around the same time that total French military withdrawal had been successfully fulfilled, Prime Minister Tambèla met with neighboring President Goïta and other Malian authorities to express the desire for unity among the respective populations.
Tambèla stated, “We are considering a federation today. This is our medium-term objective. We need everyone’s support in this because as long as we remain isolated, we are fragile. The Mali-Burkina Faso Federation will constitute a much more decisive striking power.”
Furthermore, Tambèla qualifies his use of the term federation with reference to the example of the Mali Federation during which Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Benin had attempted but failed to form a unitary state during the latter half of the 1950s.
Moreover, Tambèla orchestrated subsequent talks between both Malian and Guinean foreign ministers to discuss unification plans. He insisted upon drawing from the revolutions waged under Thomas Sankara, Modibo Keïta and Ahmed Sékou Touré, respectively.
It remains to be seen where these events will lead, but there is unmistakably anti-colonial trend shaking Africa once more and the left-wing turn of govrernance in Burkina Faso is trying to continue the legacy, ultimately cut short, of Thomas Sankara.