Ibrahim Traoré Would Like to Be Thomas Sankara’s Heir

Ibrahim Traoré, president of Burkina Faso since October 2022, polarizes opinion, to say the least. Some hail him as the hope for a new Pan-Africanism, the long-overdue end of French imperialism in West Africa, and resource sovereignty. Others point to the authoritarian traits of the regime and the repression of trade unionists, civil society activists, and journalists.

The scope of Traoré’s political projects, and the pace at which they are being implemented, is striking. This has generated enthusiasm, particularly among a younger generation that vehemently rejects French neocolonial dominance and is deeply frustrated by a gerontocratic political system unable or unwilling to deliver reform. The question remains, though, whether a military government can be the alternative, and whether the ends justify the means.

Coups to Fight Terrorism

Traoré and his Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR 2) seized power through a coup d’état on September 30, 2022. He overthrew the previous military government of Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, which had itself come to power only in January 2022, also through a coup. Damiba’s junta called itself MPSR.

Neither Damiba nor Traoré came to power with a worked-out political or ideological agenda. Both justified their coups by pointing to the previous government’s failure to cope with the security crisis. Attacks by jihadist groups had increased sharply since the late 2010s, resulting in several thousand deaths a year, the closure of schools and medical facilities, and the internal displacement of more than two million people.

Given that his only agenda was the “fight against terror,” no one would have pre-dicted at the end of 2022 that Traoré would carry out political reforms, some of them far-reaching, in the space of just three years. In January 2023, he called on France to withdraw its remainingtroops, four hundred special forces soldiers who were supposed to be fighting the jihadist groups.

The withdrawal of French troops was popular across the region, and in Burkina Faso in particular. Radical social movement organizations had been mobilizing against French neocolonial dominance for many years. At the end of the 2010s, however, such mobilization spread well beyond the circles of radical activists.

This broadening had to do with the rapidly deteriorating security situation and the perception that the well-equipped French special forces were unable — or unwilling — to push back the jihadist groups. “It’s not for our beautiful eyes that France is here,” one activist remarked in December 2020. Traoré has taken up that anti-French sentiment, which had been building since 2019, and used it to generate support for his government.

A New Geopolitical Bloc

Along with the rapid change in relations with France since 2022, there has been a shift in relations with neighboring Benin and Côte d’Ivoire as well as with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOWAS suspended the memberships of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger after military coups in those countries.

After the coup in Niger in July 2023, ECOWAS and France put pressure on Niger’s junta to reinstate the previous president, Mohamed Bazoum. Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal signaled their willingness to send troops to Niger. The military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso had obvious reason to fear a similar intervention.

They declared their solidarity with Niger and their intention to support it militarily if necessary. Unsurprisingly, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger announced their withdrawal from ECOWAS in January 2024. Their exit was formally confirmed one year later.

The adoption of the Liptako-Gourma Charter by the three countries in September 2023 laid the foundations for the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), established in July 2024. Created as a mutual defense pact after the crisis of July–August 2023, it was primarily a response to external pressure, though it has since developed well beyond those origins. A joint TV channel, AES TV, and an investment and development bank were set up in 2025.

Defense and security policy remain at the center of the alliance. In December 2025, the five-thousand-strong AES Unified Force was launched. The AES does not represent a new Pan-African movement so much as a new geopolitical bloc reflecting recent regional and global shifts — “like a marriage of reason,” as AES TV’s director, Salif Sanogo, put it.

More Economic Sovereignty, Fewer Civil Liberties?

The Traoré government has also implemented a number of reforms in domestic and economic policy. A new mining law adopted in July 2024 promotes local processing of minerals, formalizes artisanal mining, and grants the state the right to buy shares in mining projects. The mandatory state stake in a mine rose from 10 to 15 percent.

In August 2024, the government acquired two gold mines (out of twelve in the country, all operated by multinational mining companies) for $90 million. It transferred them to the state-owned Société de Participation Minière du Burkina Faso (SOPAMIB).

Prominent projects aimed at boosting the local economy include two tomato processing plants, largely financed by the state and inaugurated by Traoré in September and December 2024. Strengthening domestic value creation and increasing state participation in the mining sector have long been demands of social movements and radical civil society groups. Ironically, those demands are now being met by a government that has proven deeply repressive toward the same movements and activists.

The military government has been able to implement its projects in part because there is effectively no institutional room for opposition, and because the scope for criticism by the media, social movements, and organized civil society is sharply limited. The civilian government of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, ousted by Damiba’s coup in January 2022, had already restricted freedoms of assembly, expression, and the press during Kaboré’s first term as president (2015–19), citing the terrorist threat.

Party activity has been suspended since October 2022, and in February 2026 political parties and groups were formally dissolved. The Burkinabè Journalists’ Association had already been dissolved in March 2025, and its president and vice president, along with a number of other journalists, were detained. Some of them later appeared in a video wearing military uniforms, having been conscripted to fight terrorism.

Control over the media is tight. The country’s most important independent radio station, Radio Oméga, was suspended in August–September 2023 after it broadcast an interview with a representative of a civil society organization on the coup in Niger. It was suspended again for three months in August 2025 after referring to the government as a junta — a term that the authorities deemed “inappropriate” as well as “prejudicial and offensive.”

Social media plays a key — and problematic — role. While the space for independent coverage is limited, social media is used heavily to generate support for Traoré and his government. He has become a star in this field within a very short time.

Many of the images and videos circulating on social media are AI-generated: praise for Traoré from Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna, for example, or a message from the pope. It is virtually impossible to trace how these videos were made.

The hype on social media has combined with a lack of alternative sources of information and a strong desire, especially among the younger generation, for real change in political and eco-nomic structures — above all, an end to neocolonial and imperialist exploitation and domination. The result is Traoré’s image as a Pan-Africanist revolutionary.

Sankara and Traoré

References to Thomas Sankara, with whom Traoré is frequently compared, form part of this image. Sankara, who served as president from 1983 to 1987, was also an ambitious young military officer who came to power through a coup. An icon of Pan-Africanism, he is often called “Africa’s Che.”

In terms of political and ideological content, the comparison between the two men holds only to a limited extent. But it has a real impact on public discourse, and Traoré knows how to use allusions to Sankara to gain legitimacy.

In 2023, Traoré’s government declared the anniversary of Sankara’s assassination, October 15, a national holiday for the first time. It honored Sankara with the title “hero of the nation” and renamed one of Ouagadougou’s central roads, Boulevard Général Charles de Gaulle, as Boulevard Thomas Sankara.

In fact, Sankara had already been rehabilitated and designated a national hero in 2000, under Blaise Compaoré, the man who overthrew him. Traoré opened the Thomas Sankara Memorial in Ouagadougou in 2025, although planning for the memorial and the commission granted to the Burkinabè-German architect Francis Kéré date back to 2017, during Kaboré’s first term.

Polarization

The conditions for movements and activists have changed significantly in Burkina Faso in recent years. Human rights organizations, youth groups, and labor unions active in the country for decades had been struggling with the security crisis since the late 2010s, which made large-scale activity across the country difficult.

Restrictions on civil rights under the state of emergency further limited their scope for action. Under the 2023 policy of “general mobilization,” the transitional government empowered itself to requisition people and goods for the “fight against terror.” It has used the decree to conscript journalists and representatives of civil society organizations and trade unions into counterterrorism operations across the country.

While the organizations that mobilized the popular insurrection of 2014 have been pushed into the background, a number of new groups and social media activists have emerged in recent years. They are less concerned with their own political and ideological agendas than with supporting the current government.

The most visible are the “Wayiyan,” groups of mostly young men in cities who gather at roundabouts and other central locations to observe the “smooth running of the transition.” According to political scientist Rahmane Idrissa, they have threatened to attack anyone organizing a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the 2014 insurrection. It is hard to see why a progressive popular revolution — as Traoré proclaimed it on April 2, 2025 — would need to restrain movements and media that have long cam-paigned for policies such as resource sovereignty.

Traoré cultivates his image as a revolutionary, as Sankara once did, and the association with Sankara is central to that image. Sankara’s politics are often described as a form of pragmatic socialism. Traoré’s outlook is rather more pragmatic than socialist.

This approach may be strategically astute, as it appeals not only to the younger generation but also to powerful religious and traditional elites. Sankara’s experience showed how difficult it is to overcome those elites. He tried anyway.

Traoré’s conditions are, of course, quite different from those under which Sankara operated. Sankara did not face the threat from jihadist groups that now dominates the situation in Burkina Faso. But the main problem with the comparison is that the link to Sankara serves as a source of legitimacy for Traoré, giving rise to a personality cult that hinders rather than promotes critical debate on political strategy and vision.