Coming to power on September 30, 2022 through a putsch, the transitional president of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, wants to ensure that his image is that of a leader following in the footsteps of Thomas Sankara. With this in mind, the transitional government decided on Wednesday to elevate the former president and father of the Burkinabe revolution to the rank of “Hero of the Nation”.
The status of “hero of the Nation” was created in June 2022 to honor people who have distinguished themselves in particular by their “exceptional bravery in the defense of a national cause”, or their “exceptional and honorable prowess for the Nation” .
A succession of coups
“The Council (of Ministers) adopted a decree recognizing the status of hero of the Nation to the late Captain Isidore Thomas Noël Sankara,” according to the report. “The consecration of the status of hero of the Nation” to Thomas Sankara “aims to perpetuate the cardinal values which founded the Republic”, justified the government.
Coming to power through a putsch in August 1983, Thomas Sankara, a pan-African icon, was killed on October 15, 1987 during a coup d’état instigated by his number two, Blaise Compaoré. That day, the Burkinabé president was in a meeting at the headquarters of his National Council of the Revolution (CNR) when a commando of putschist soldiers arrived on the spot and shot him and his companions.
After the death of Thomas Sankara, his successor remained in power until a popular insurrection that led to his fall in 2014. In April 2022, after a six-month trial, the Ouagadougou military court convicted Blaise Compaoré, who lives in Ivory Coast, in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.
Buried for the first time in a cemetery on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the bodies of Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions were exhumed on May 25, 2015, for the purposes of legal proceedings before being buried in a memorial erected at the very site of their assassinations. A “national and international ceremony of tribute to the victims will be organized on October 15, to honor their memories”, according to the government.