Anti-Western Crusader Ibrahim Traoré Offers Hope For Burkina Faso And All Africa

At first glance you might not think that Burkina Faso’s Captain Ibrahim Traoré is one of Africa’s most popular and controversial leaders. He is never seen in public without his military uniform, and ever since he took power in a military coup in 2022 he has refused to accept any raise from his military salary. Since his rise he has drawn comparisons to his countryman, perhaps Africa’s most inspirational leader, Thomas Sankara. He has made international headlines after his government claimed to have foiled a Western-backed and Côte d’Ivoire based coup attempt. Traore appears to represent a new direction for an Africa which appears to desperately need it. Since the beginning of the post-colonial era Africa has been shackled by Western interference in its political and economic progress, Traoré threatens to challenge this order, and is capturing hearts across Africa in doing so. 

Since taking power, Traoré has taken a sledgehammer to Burkina Faso’s status quo. In February 2023, on his orders, French troops stationed in Burkina Faso withdrew. They were stationed there as part of Opération Sabre, which was intended to combat the growth of Islamic Extremism in the region. By that stage such groups had control of 40% of Burkina Faso, and locals had grown tired of what, to them, had become ineffective foreign meddling. This, alongside the dropping of French as an official language, and withdrawal from ECOWAS, declaring it as subservient to France, makes very clear the approach which Traore has assumed towards Burkina Faso’s one-time colonial ruler. ‘A slave who cannot assume his own revolt does not deserve to be pitied.’ These were Traoré's words at the second Russia-Africa summit of the same year. This is an emphatic call to arms and provocation of both the West and its incessant meddling in Africa, and African leaders who facilitate it. In the same speech he laments the fact that, despite its extraordinary wealth in raw materials, Africa remains the world’s poorest continent. It is perhaps his actions in this field that has Western powers - particularly France and the US - reeling the most. 

He has taken actions to nationalise Burkina Faso’s rich supply of natural resources. His government has created a state-owned mining company, and nationalised two gold mines, limiting the proportion of profit which foreign firms can take from operations in Burkina Faso. Traoré is taking measures to ensure that Burkina Faso can not only financially benefit from its own resources, but also increase the number of jobs and skills imparted onto its people through this industry. This appears to be working. The World Bank describes growth projections as strong, and perhaps most importantly, since Traoré's rise to power, the poverty rate has dropped by almost two percent. This is extremely significant for what is one of the poorest nations on Earth. Traoré appears to be breathing hope into Burkina Faso and, with it, all of Africa. 

The prevailing feeling in Africa appears to be that the West offers little of real value to Africa, and that it has used its postcolonial economic influence to steer Africa’s development to its favour. Traoré represents a generation which refuses to continue this legacy of subservience. Turning to other major powers - particularly Russia. For Traoré, it appears that Russia offers less political influence, and more genuine security. The ill-fated Wagner Group enjoyed significant operations in Africa, and Putin has guaranteed similar security assurances to states such as Burkina Faso, despite the group’s disbandment. There is, though, an important distinction to make, Captain Traoré is not pro-Russian, he is pro-African.

A pro-African regime has never been easy to maintain, the most famous historical example being legendary pan-Africanist and fellow Burkinabé Thomas Sankara. The ‘African Che Guevara’s’ regime was brought down by a pro-Western coup in 1987, and Traoré's reverence for him is well-documented, having unveiled a new statue of him in Ouagadougou and citing him as his greatest inspiration. As well as fears that his regime may go the same way, pro-Junta rallies have grown in number since the aforementioned news that his government brought down a Western-backed coup attempt based in Côte d’Ivoire in April. 

Make no mistake, his regime is not a democratic one, and he has been accused of autocratic power consolidation, cracking down on the media and opposition political groups. The fact is, though, that in Africa it seems to be felt that democracy has brought the continent very little, and a recent poll shows that it is becoming less and less popular, with a majority of those polled supporting military rule if a democratic government abuses its power. Traoré is not perfect, and may be no Sankara, but who can begrudge him his extraordinary popularity. Time will tell if his regime will go the same way as so many of his pan-African predecessors, but he is a rare example of a leader who threatens to offer hope, and put Africa first.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Voice of America Bambara

Licence: public domain.

Image changes made: right side of image cropped to occlude VOA logo, left side of image slightly cropped for aesthetic purposes.