Burkina Faso’s revolutionary political leaders have officially renamed one of the capital Ouagadougou’s main streets, replacing the country’s former colonial ruler with his pan-Africanist independence father, Thomas Sankara. This decision follows similar trends in Ivory Coast and Senegal.
As part of the commemoration of the 36th on the anniversary of Sankara’s assassination on October 15, Boulevard Général Charles De Gaulle in the capital Ouagadougou was officially renamed Boulevard Thomas Sankara.
Daouda Traoré, retired colonel-major and vice-president of the International Committee of the Thomas Sankara Memorial, was delighted that the boulevard now bears the name of “the most famous Burkinabé citizen in the world”.
It is a “name that drapes this boulevard with the seal of the dignity and sovereignty of our people, in accordance with our history, our spirit and our soul marked by anti-imperialist convictions,” he said. he declares.
While Burkina Faso has seen a rise in anti-colonial sentiment, the assertion of sovereignty by renaming streets and monuments is by no means specific to the Sahel state. There is a spreading of revolutionary, anti-colonial fervor in West Africa in general.
In the Ivory Coast, Soiresse cites stadiums bearing the name of former Ivorian Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny or current President Alassane Ouattara; and streets named after former president Laurent Gbagbo.
French Presidents Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and François Mitterrand lost streets and were replaced respectively by Ivory Coast’s first President Félix Houphouet-Boigny and German writer and politician Coffi Gadeau and First Lady Dominique Ouattara.
In Senegal, opposition leader Ousmane Sonko began renaming streets after anti-colonial figures shortly after becoming mayor of Ziguinchor in February 2022.
Believing that streets bearing the names of French personalities were “an attack on national dignity”, rue du Général de Gaulle became rue de la Paix while avenue du Capitaine Javelier was renamed avenue du Tirailleur Africain in homage to the African soldiers who fought for France. during the two world wars.
Sonko’s preferences were short-lived, however, with the Supreme Court declaring them invalid in December 2022.