Today’s African leaders are like one term is not enough to govern and make a change.
Thomas Sankara Achievements and legacies in 4 Years in office as president of Burkina Faso is a big lesson for today’s African leaders.
The late president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara – an icon for many young Africans in the 1980s – remains to some a heroic “African Che Guevara”, 34 years after his assassination at the age of 37.
Be it through the red beret, worn by firebrand South African politician Julius Malema, or the household brooms being wielded at street demonstrations in Burkina Faso, there are signs that his legacy is enjoying a revival.
Praised by supporters for his integrity and selflessness, the military captain and anti-imperialist revolutionary led Burkina Faso for four years from 1983 to 1987
Sankara was a staunch defender of all things that is home-grown – such as cotton – and yet the African textile industry failed to make him a T-shirt icon.
His influence is still felt as far afield as South Africa, argues columnist Andile Mngxitama
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List Of Notable Achievements And Legacies Of Late Thomas Sankara Of Burkina Faso 4years In Office As President Of Burkina Faso
1. He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks.
2. He initiated a nationwide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.
3. He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification.
4. He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid
5. He appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education.
6. He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights.
7. He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.
8. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.
9. He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient.
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10. He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”
11. He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against continued neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.
12. He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting.
13. In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).
14. He forced civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects.
15. He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes.
16. As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.
17. A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
18. He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. (The reason being to rely upon local industry and identity rather than foreign industry and identity)
19. When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
20. An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself.
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Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara’s Background And Profile.
Born: December 21, 1949 Burkina Faso
Died: October 15, 1987 (aged 37) Ouagadougou Burkina Faso
Title / Office: president (1983-1987), Burkina Faso prime minister (1983-1983), Burkina Faso
Sankara’s Roman Catholic parents wanted him to be a priest, but he opted for a military career instead.
In 1970, at the age of 20, Sankara was sent for officer training in Madagascar, where he witnessed a popular uprising of students and workers that succeeded in toppling Madagascar’s government.
Before returning to Upper Volta in 1972, Sankara attended a parachute academy in France, where he was further exposed to left-wing political ideologies. In 1974 he earned much public attention for his heroic performance in the border war with Mali, but years later he would renounce the war as useless and unjust.
By the early 1980s, Burkina Faso was being rocked by a series of labour union strikes and military coups. Sankara’s military achievements and charismatic leadership style made him a popular choice for political appointments, but his personal and political integrity put him at odds with the leadership of the successive military governments that came to power, leading to his arrest on several occasions.
In January 1983, Sankara was selected as the prime minister of the newly formed Council for the Salvation of the People (Conseil de Salut du Peuple; CSP), headed by Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. This post provided him with an entryway into international politics and a chance to meet with leaders of the nonaligned movement, including Fidel Castro (Cuba), Samora Machel (Mozambique), and Maurice Bishop (Grenada).
Sankara’s anti-imperialist stance and grassroots popularity increasingly put him at odds with conservative elements within the CSP, including President Ouédraogo.
Sankara was removed as prime minister in May and arrested once again. On August 4, 1983, Blaise Compaoré, Sankara’s close friend and fellow army colleague, led a group that freed Sankara, overthrew the Ouédraogo regime, and formed the National Council of the Revolution (Conseil National de la Révolution) with Sankara as its president.
Sankara declared the objectives of the “democratic and popular revolution” to be primarily concerned with the tasks of eradicating corruption, fighting environmental degradation, empowering women, and increasing access to education and health care, with the larger goal of liquidating imperial domination.
During the course of his presidency, Sankara successfully implemented programs that vastly reduced infant mortality, increased literacy rates and school attendance, and boosted the number of women holding governmental posts.
On the environmental front, in the first year of his presidency alone 10 million trees were planted in an effort to combat desertification. On the first anniversary of the coup that had brought him to power, he changed the country’s name from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means roughly “land of upright people” in Mossi and Dyula, the country’s two most widely spoken indigenous languages.
Despite the great strides that were made, there was growing dissent in the country, partly because of economic problems and opposition from traditional quarters to some of Sankara’s more progressive social policies.
His administration gradually lost popular support, and internal conflict within his government grew as well. On October 15, 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a coup led by Compaoré and two others.
