By Atwemereireho Alex
Africa is not a sleeping giant; it is a suffocated one. Its lungs have long been pressed by the weight of imperial duplicity, its arteries drained by extractive economies masquerading as partnerships, and its political spine bent by postcolonial elites conditioned to administer decline on behalf of others. Yet history is uncompromising in one respect: no people can be permanently denied dignity without resistance eventually finding a voice. From the wreckage of betrayal and the fatigue of managed poverty, a new continental consciousness is stirring, a defiant, unapologetically African, and anchored in the revolutionary grammar of self-determination.
At the centre of this resurgence stands Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the transitional President of Burkina Faso. His ascension to power in September 2022 did not merely unsettle diplomatic salons in Paris, Brussels, and Washington; it ruptured a carefully maintained illusion that Africa must forever outsource its sovereignty for survival. To Western establishments, Traoré is framed as an interruption, a destabiliser of a fragile order. To a rapidly awakening generation of Africans, he represents something far more unsettling to empire: proof that courage, when married to clarity, can reclaim agency from the jaws of historical theft.
Traoré’s rise is frequently reduced to a military episode. This is intellectually lazy and politically dishonest. What is unfolding in Burkina Faso is not a fetishisation of the uniform; it is a revolt against a system that perfected control without accountability. In a region where elections have too often legitimised dependency rather than sovereignty, Traoré’s intervention reads as a political correction an insistence that legitimacy must be measured not by foreign applause, but by national dignity and material improvement in people’s lives.
What distinguishes Traoré is not theatrical radicalism, but ideological coherence. He neither markets himself as a saviour nor hides behind technocratic euphemisms. His message is blunt, almost unfashionably so: Africa must own its resources, control its security, define its development, and restore pride to its people. In a continent where submission has been institutionalised as “pragmatism,” such clarity is revolutionary.
Within two years, his administration has recalibrated the political axis of francophone Africa. Burkina Faso terminated military accords with France, expelled French troops, and rejected the doctrine that African security must be subcontracted to former colonisers. This was not symbolic bravado. For over a decade, foreign military presence in the Sahel failed to contain terrorism; instead, insecurity expanded alongside dependency. Traoré’s position exposed a truth long buried under diplomatic niceties: Africa cannot be militarily occupied into stability.
Equally consequential is his challenge to monetary colonialism. The CFA Franc still used by several West and Central African states remains one of the last formal instruments of colonial economic control. Guaranteed by the French Treasury and governed by mechanisms that strip African states of monetary sovereignty, the CFA system has historically constrained industrialisation, distorted trade balances, and facilitated capital flight. By openly questioning and resisting this arrangement, Traoré joins Mali and Niger in reopening a debate that many African leaders have feared to touch. This is not mere economics; it is psychological emancipation.
Traoré’s governance also signals a decisive turn toward resource nationalism. Burkina Faso is Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer, yet for decades, the majority of its mineral wealth flowed outward, while communities around mining sites remained mired in poverty. By reviewing mining contracts, strengthening state participation, formalising artisanal mining, and redirecting revenues toward national priorities, his administration is asserting a principle enshrined in Article 21 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: that peoples have permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. For a country where gold accounts for over 70% of export earnings, this shift is not ideological theatre; it is economic survival.
Critically, Traoré’s agenda exposes the moral bankruptcy of the development industry. Structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s, engineered by the IMF and World Bank hollowed out African states, privatised essential services, and converted public policy into an exercise in austerity obedience. The same institutions now posture as custodians of democracy while sanctioning leaders who refuse economic submission. This is not concern; it is continuity of control by softer means.
His intellectual lineage is unmistakable. He invokes Thomas Sankara not as nostalgia, but as unfinished business. Like Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, and Kwame Nkrumah, Traoré understands that political independence without economic sovereignty is a costume, not freedom. His insistence on African solutions regional solidarity, local production, cultural affirmation—rejects the myth that development must be imported fully formed from the West.
The costs of such defiance are real. Burkina Faso faces relentless jihadist violence, rooted partly in the destabilisation of Libya following NATO’s 2011 intervention. It endures diplomatic cold shoulders, hostile media narratives, and economic pressure. Western outlets brand Traoré authoritarian, while extending indulgence to regimes that auction national wealth for legitimacy abroad. This selective morality is not lost on African youth.
And the youth are the story here. Across Africa, a demographic majority raised amid unemployment, insecurity, and digital awareness is interrogating the postcolonial order with unprecedented ferocity. They understand that the enemy is not always a soldier; often it arrives as a contract, a loan condition, a “reform” package. They know that foreign investment frequently translates into foreign extraction. They recognise that democracy devoid of dignity is a procedural fraud.
What is unfolding in Burkina Faso is therefore continental, not local. The Alliance of Sahel States formed by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger is more than a security pact; it is a declaration of collective sovereignty. The renewed push for regional currencies and autonomous economic planning represents a break from inherited paralysis. These are early steps, imperfect and contested, but history is built by beginnings, not perfection.
Africa’s deficit has never been intelligence or capacity. Our universities produce scholars. Our land yields strategic minerals. Our youth innovate under impossible conditions. What has been systematically denied is freedom – freedom from mental colonisation, institutional mimicry, and the lie that Africa must be governed externally to function.
The task ahead is to institutionalise this awakening. Education must be re-Africanised, not as isolationism, but as epistemic justice. Legal systems must be decolonised to serve citizens rather than capital. Economies must be demystified so that policy serves production, not rent-seeking. Citizenship itself must be reimagined, not as a passive legal status, but as active ownership of the state.
This is why Ibrahim Traoré matters. Not because he is flawless, but because he proves that refusal is possible. That Africa can say no and still stand. That sovereignty is not a gift; it is a stance. That youth, often dismissed as inexperienced, have historically been the furnace of transformation.
Thomas Sankara once warned humanity of a moral choice: “We must choose either champagne for a few or safe drinking water for all.” Traoré has chosen water. And millions walk with him not out of coercion, but recognition. They see direction, not divinity. Purpose, not performance.
This moment is fragile, and history is unforgiving to complacency. If Africa falters now, it will not be for lack of vision, but lack of courage. The ancestors whisper through memory, the soil speaks through struggle, and the youth watch with discerning eyes.
The African drumbeat of liberation has begun again. This time, it must not be muted. For those who fell dreaming, and those yet unborn who deserve to inherit more than ruins. The writer is a lawyer, researcher and governance analyst. He can be reached via (alexatweme@gmail.com). (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
