For too long, the narrative surrounding African leadership has been one of disappointment and stagnation. However, a seismic shift is underway, heralded by transformative figures like Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré. His leadership, along with the legacies of pan-African giants, offers profound lessons for the continent, urging a collective re-evaluation of governance, sovereignty, and the very act of being African.
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The Precautions of a Revolutionary Leader
The sight of President Ibrahim Traoré in full military fatigue, wearing a heavy vest and gloves, is not merely a fashion statement; it is a profound political commentary. This attire underscores the realization that, as a figure actively threatening the status quo and neo-colonialism, he faces significant hostility. He understands the need to take basic precautions to ensure his survival and efficacy, learning from the tragic mistake of his role model, Thomas Sankara, who prioritized servant leadership to the extent of neglecting his personal security. Traoré’s actions demonstrate an evolution in revolutionary strategy: allowing God to protect him while taking humanly possible defensive measures to ensure his continued ability to serve.
The Imperative of Accountability and Servant Leadership
The conversation around African governance highlights an urgent need for citizens to hold presidents accountable, moving beyond traditional allegiances to community or ethnic group. The contrast between Traoré’s transformative, servant leadership and that of other African presidents is stark.
A few months ago, Traoré took an unprecedented step: he purchased hundreds of tractors that are fueled and managed by the government to provide free services for thousands of farmers in Burkina Faso. This intervention, driven by the nation’s severe economic hardship, ensures timely land cultivation, protecting the crucial planting season and preventing widespread collapse. This focus on domestic, practical policies—saving money typically spent on fancy travel or palaces—epitomizes the servant leadership many Africans deserve but rarely receive.
Deconstructing the Toxic Relationship: The Three Rs of African Healing
Africa’s history has been characterized by numerous toxic relationships spanning over 700 to 800 years—from the 1500s with Portuguese arrival and the subsequent Transatlantic and Trans-Saharan slave trades, to colonialism and the ongoing neo-colonialism. Healing from this collective trauma requires a three-step process, the Three Rs:
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Reflection: This involves facing and processing collective pain—confronting historical horrors like the genocides in Namibia and Rwanda (often proxy wars enabled by external forces), the transatlantic slave trade, and the tragic trajectories set by early, self-serving leaders like Burkina Faso’s first president, Maurice Yaméogo, who built a massive palace while the fledgling nation needed every resource. Traoré exemplifies reflection by modeling his presidency after Thomas Sankara while learning from his predecessor’s mistakes.
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Rebuilding: This is about setting boundaries, reconnecting with African essence, and reclaiming power. At the national level, rebuilding means fostering economic growth, creating jobs, and lifting livelihoods, ensuring that the country’s young, innovative people can thrive through small and medium-sized businesses. The current reality, where some African governments encourage citizens to seek poorly compensated, dangerous jobs abroad, is a form of further destruction, not rebuilding.
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Rewriting: As Sankara urged, this means inventing the future that Africans want to see—a future where no African dies fleeing across the Mediterranean. This is impossible unless leaders engage in reflection and rebuilding, ending the cycle of repeating past mistakes.
Traoré’s Policies: The Engine of Transformation
Traoré’s administration is not based on mere infatuation but on tangible, transformative policies:
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Value Addition: Addressing Africa’s major economic hurdle, Traoré has prioritized value addition. Burkina Faso is beginning to produce and export products like tomato paste, a simple yet powerful step. This policy counters the tragic trend where Africa exports jobs by importing value-added goods, such as tomato paste, that could be produced domestically from locally rotting produce.
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Gold Sovereignty: As one of Africa’s top six gold producers, Burkina Faso’s gold industry was historically controlled by foreign-owned refineries (French and Chinese). Traoré’s move to establish local gold refineries is a seismic shift, ensuring that the value chain is controlled by the Burkinabè people, keeping revenue within the country. This act of asserting control over a resource—historically, gold backed currencies—is a direct challenge to the global fiscal system, where value is often diluted through government fiat currency decrees.
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Decolonizing Symbols and Systems: Traoré’s decision to do away with Western judicial regalia, such as judges’ wigs, replacing them with national costume, is a powerful act of decolonization. These foreign symbols perpetuate a psychological attachment to the colonial era. This move is part of a wider decolonization scheme that will inevitably lead to the country taking steps to walk away from the CFA Franc, the currency whose reserves are held in the French Central Bank. This symbolic and fiscal departure is expected to trigger a domino effect among other Francophone countries.
Controlling the Narrative: Media and Security
Traoré’s regime has faced criticism for suspending the services of international media houses like the BBC and Voice of America. This move is argued to be a necessary defense against those who distort the African story and stifle the African agenda, a strategy perfected by Western entities like Hollywood. The control of narrative is critical; too often, excellence is wrongly associated with whiteness due to years of being fed narratives of African inferiority.
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This media control ties into the country’s severe security challenges in the Sahel region, where nearly half of Burkina Faso is under threat from jihadist terrorism. Globalists are employing a strategy of utter instability to wear down the patience of the local people. If Traoré, a young revolutionary, fails to conquer the massive insecurity that even foreign forces could not handle, the international media will shift the narrative: He took over promising security, but he failed. This tactic is a patient, long-term assault on his legitimacy.
The African Alliance and the Failure of the AU
The establishment of the African Alliance—currently comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—is a direct consequence of the African Union’s (AU) impotence. The AU has proven unable to effectively address mass displacement and millions of deaths across the continent in Sudan, Congo, and the Sahel. The silence of the AU on major global abuses, such as the UAE funding the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan and some African governments (like Kenya) hosting RSF as honored guests, confirms its functional breakdown. The African Alliance seeks to provide a political and security framework where the AU has failed, making the body ultimately unworthy of its mandate.
The Legacy of Transformative Leaders
Traoré’s actions echo the legacies of other non-nonsense African leaders who fiercely insisted on sovereignty:
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Thomas Sankara: The ultimate role model, known for his hatred of the “big man’s syndrome” and his call to “invent the future we want to see.”
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Patrice Lumumba: The Congolese leader who was assassinated through the unholy hand of the CIA and Belgium due to his transformative leadership and insistence on sovereignty.
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Samora Machel: Mozambique’s founding president, another strong believer in sovereignty.
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John Pombe Magufuli: The late Tanzanian president, a scientist with a PhD in Chemistry who rejected pomp (“Hapa Kazi Tu”—I’m just here to work) and championed sovereignty. He renegotiated gold mining deals, saving Tanzania hundreds of millions, and insisted on self-sufficiency during COVID-19 by calling for local production of vaccines and masks. His mysterious death, after confronting global interests, demands a public inquiry led by impartial Africans, as closure is vital to prevent similar fates for future transformative leaders.
The Kenyan Paradox: The Dangers of Propaganda
The initial high hopes placed on Kenya’s President William Ruto, who was initially hailed as a revolutionary and darling of the West, serve as a cautionary tale. Like Mzee Jomo Kenyatta before him—a leader still perceived as a great revolutionary despite presiding over land injustices and entrenched corruption—Ruto initially expertly wielded propaganda to portray himself as a transformative figure.
However, the reality, as evidenced by his shifting stances and domestic policies, quickly emerged. His government’s act of allowing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—the militia that perpetrated the Darfur genocide and continued killing ethnic Africans in Sudan—to establish a parallel government in the country, is a matter of profound shame and a betrayal of African solidarity.
Africans must heed the saying, “You will know them by their fruits.” The responsibility lies with the electorate to break the cycle of reactionary politics and vote for leaders based on character and vision, not on protest against the incumbent.
The Call to Action: Every African Must Be a Revolutionary
The greatest resource of Africa is its youthful human resource. This generation must become revolutionaries. This does not mean taking up arms, but embracing righteous rage—the belief that “enough is enough,” that Africans deserve an Africa where they can earn a decent salary, start thriving businesses, and live a life unconstrained by mere survival.
The statistics are a stark reminder of the urgency: the life expectancy in Nigeria is 58 years, compared to 89 in Sweden. This disparity is due to lifestyle diseases (fueled by processed foods), conflict (often funded through foreign policy), and the high rate of unemployment/underemployment (at least 80% across the continent).
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Empowerment: Women, the mothers of mankind, must roar—not silently, as Sankara once referenced, but loudly—to change the continent forever.
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Responsibility: The African man must rise to the challenge, reconnecting with the “King within,” and commit to building and rebuilding Africa with bare hands and mind, rejecting the dream of living as a subject in the West.
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Intellectual Acumen: Decolonize learning by becoming a voracious reader and consumer of knowledge, following the example of Malcolm X and Patrice Lumumba.
The struggle to rebuild and rewrite the African story is ongoing, but the path is now clearer. It is a journey that requires collective action and a profound, permanent decolonization of the mind.
What are your thoughts on Ibrahim Traoré’s leadership, and what is your own personal “take-home” from this conversation? Share your feedback below.
The recommended reading includes:
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Wisdom Whispers from Historic African Leaders (by DJ Bali)
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How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (by Dr. Walter Rodney)
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Dead Aid (by Dambisa Moyo)