The imperfections of latter-day pan-Africanist Ibrahim Traore

Burkina Faso leader Captain Ibrahim Traore. [AFP]

Over the years, the African continent has had a brave few leaders come forward and forge the way for their people, away from imperial interests. Always, the leaders have their short leadership spans ended by death or military coup. The first and most famous of these movements for liberation was the brotherly coalition between Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea. As the first leaders of their independent nations, they worked tirelessly to ensure the liberation of the rest of the continent from the shackles of Western hegemony. Naturally, the West was not happy with this and, utilising the CIA and other clever tricks, ensured the assassination of Patrice Lumumba of then Zaire and the overthrow of Nkrumah. Toure got to live and lead, but in later years changed his tune in support of America.

With the decimation of independence-era revolutionary movements, Africa fell in line with the interests of the West through its puppet leaders, acceding to Bretton Woods' demands by taking loans and destroying social services through the subsequent Structural Adjustment Programmes. This was until another brief glimmer of hope was lit through the Burkina Faso military coup of 1983 that saw Thomas Sankara take up the mantle of leadership. During his tenure of only four years, Sankara was able to drastically increase literacy amongst the Burkinabe people whilst reducing government spending. His legacy lives on due not only to his liberation of the country's economy, but also his forward-thinking politics, which recognised the great role that women should play in nation-building. His CIA-backed assassination in 1987 dealt a huge blow not only to Burkina Faso but to the revolutionaries who had hoped that the winds of change would blow onto the rest of the continent.