Thomas Sankara: The Revolutionary Who Tried to Free Africa

On August 4, 1983, a 33-year-old army captain named Thomas Sankara took power in the tiny West African nation of Upper Volta and immediately announced its transformation. He renamed it Burkina Faso — the Land of Upright People — and declared war on poverty, corruption, and imperialism.

The Revolutionary Programme

Sankara's presidency was a relentless assault on inequality. He reduced his own salary to $450 a month, sold off the government's fleet of Mercedes, banned first-class airline tickets for government officials, and made civil servants wear traditional cotton clothing rather than imported suits.

He launched one of Africa's most ambitious literacy programmes, cutting the illiteracy rate dramatically in just four years. He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles in a single week. He planted 10 million trees to combat desertification.

Women's Rights Pioneer

Sankara was radical in his feminist commitments. He banned female genital mutilation and forced marriages, appointed women to senior government positions, and encouraged women to enter the workforce and military at a time when this was unthinkable in West Africa.

The Assassination

On October 15, 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a coup organized by his former friend and colleague Blaise Compaoré — who then ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years. The assassination is widely believed to have had external involvement, given Sankara's vocally anti-imperialist stance.

His killing silenced a voice that had called openly for Africa to repudiate its debt to Western institutions: "Those who lent us money are those who colonized us," he said at an African Union summit in 1987, months before his death.