Two days after my thirteenth birthday on 15^th October 1987, I heard over the radio that Thomas Sankara the President of Burkina Faso had been assassinated.The sad part for us was the killing of a president. Only many years later would I appreciate his life after reading the story of how a leader mobilized his people to turn round their destiny.

Suddenly, the momentum and direction of progress seemed dead. However before he came to his end he had told his people that “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas”

He managed to do bring so much change by personally educating Burkinabe’s how the world works and how they would survive. He told them their destiny is in their hands and not in the hands of foreign powers. He taught self reliance and how begging lowers their dignity. This enabled him to mobilize them to come out and work even as volunteers because they felt that they owned their country.

Thomas Sankara was a man who lived well before his time.African leaders during this time never understood him but now we do and regret why we did not begin then.

Thomas Sankara began as a  junior officer in the army of Upper Volta, a former French colony which was run as a source of cheap labour for neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire to benefit a tiny ruling class and their patrons in Paris. Madagascar shaped his thinking as he saw wave after wave of student demonstrations that brought sweeping changes to the island country. Several successive governments appointed him to various positions but he turned down most of them due to his ideologies of how things should be done for the benefit of all. He was a hero in the war against Mali but later he called the war “useless” because it was a fight on behalf of colonial masters. He was even appointed the Prime Minister but was later detained.In August 1983, a successful coup led by his friend Blaise Compaoré led to his release and brought him to power at the age of only 33. 

He immediately organized mobilizations and committees to defend the revolution. These committees became the cornerstone of popular participation in power. Political parties on the other hand were dissolved. In 1984, Sankara renamed the country Burkina Faso (land of people of integrity). This is very visionary, he named her what he wanted her to become not what the colonialists named it.

Sankara dealt heavy blows to corruption in government, slashing ministerial salaries and adopting a simpler approach to life. Journalist Paula Akugizibwe says Sankara “rode a bicycle to work before he upgraded, at his Cabinet’s insistence, to a Renault 5 – one of the cheapest cars available in Burkina Faso at the time. Even so, he used to drive himself and never used convoys to move around. He lived in a small brick house and wore only cotton that was produced, weaved and sewn in Burkina Faso.” 

He rallied Burkinabes to provide their own basic needs rather than import them expensively from France. Adoption of local clothes and local foods was central to Sankara’s economic strategy to break the country from the domination of the West. He famously said: 

“’Where is imperialism?” Look at your plates when you eat. These imported grains of rice, corn, and millet - that is imperialism.” 

His solution was to grow food - “Let us consume only what we ourselves control!” . He encouraged growing traditional crops which were adaptable to the climate. The results were incredible: self-sufficiency in 4 years. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler says that a combination of massive land distribution, fertiliser and irrigation saw agricultural productivity boom; “hunger was a thing of the past”.

Huge gains were also made in health, with the immunisation of millions of children, and education in a country which had had over 90% illiteracy. In 1988, a year after he took power Burkina Faso became the first country in Africa to run mass measles vaccination campaigns. With aid from Cuban volunteers,  almost 3 million children were immunized for several infectious diseases. Infant mortality rate dropped from 280 deaths in every 1000 children down to 145 deaths in every 1000.

Basic infrastructure was built to connect the country. Resources were nationalized, local industry was supported. More than 10 millions trees were planted in an attempt to stop desertification. All of this involved a huge mobilization of Burkina Faso’s people, who began to build their country with their own hands, something Sankara saw as essential. 

Even today, trees are planted to celebrate birthdays, weddings and graduations. School attendance rose from 12% to 22% in just two years and was complimented by policies to encourage attendance and eventual graduation. Sankara refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxuries were only available to few Burkinabes

He refused to allow his portrait to be displayed all over the as most African leaders liked.The portrait does not make you good if you are already a bad leader.

He sold the government’s fleet of Mercedes benz and purchased the far more affordable and easy to maintain Renault 5. In 2003 critics of the Kenyan government’s purchase of 12 million dollars in luxury cars advised the government to follow the example of Sankara.

Few leaders and especially of his generation regarded women rights as important. He was very strong and led by example in empowering women. Women were recruited into all professions, including the military and the government. It entailed ending the pressure on women to marry. And it meant involving women centrally in the grassroots revolutionary mobilisation. "We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph." He saw the struggle of Burkina Faso’s women as “part of the worldwide struggle of all women”. 

To make men understand, during one of the international women’s day he had men do the chores that are traditionally for women. That day only men went to the markets to shop for food.

Sankara was a Pan Africanist and he used international conferences as platforms to demand leaders stand up against the deep structural injustices faced by countries like Burkina Faso. In the mid 1980s, that meant speaking out on the question of debt. 

At the conference of Organisation of African Unity in 1987 he  persuaded fellow African leaders to refuse to pay their debts. He told delegates: "Debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave.” Seeing these same leaders go off one-by-one to Western governments to get a slight restructuring of their debt, he urged common, public action that would free all of Africa from domination. “If Burkina Faso alone were to refuse to pay the debt, I wouldn’t be at the next conference.” Unfortunately, he wasn’t to be. 

If the Organization of African Unity(OAU) now African Union(AU) had taken heed to what Sankara said many of them would have left their offices with dignity and satisfaction.

 He once said about the problems in Africa “The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political. Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being.” 

In a large scale, the lives of Burkinabes greatly improved and if the tempo was sustained for at least 10 years, Burkina Faso would have been miles ahead. Sadly, Blaise Campaore only came in to serve his foreign masters not the Burkinabes.

Perhaps today, Sankara’s words are most relevant to the crisis in Europe. They are echoed by those in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland who have heard little of him: 

“Those who led us into debt were gambling, as if they were in a casino.. there is talk of a crisis. No. They gambled. They lost... We cannot repay the debt because we have nothing to pay it with. We cannot repay the debt because it is not our responsibility.” 

Sankara believed in people’s ability to change their destiny. He believed change must be creative, nonconformist - indeed containing “a certain amount of madness”. He believed radical change would only come when people were convinced and active, not passive and conquered. And he believed the solution is political - not one of charity. Surely Sankara has never been more relevant to our quest for justice in Africa and the world. 

The most appropriate way to honor the lives and struggles of our slain heroes is to pick up where they left off. So when we had our son we had no option but to name him the leader of the upright men –SANKARA. In his first year alone, I have seen him a strong leader but he will definitely not be assassinated.