The first time I saw Blaise Compaoré was at the African Union Heads of State Summit that held in Addis Ababa in 2013. At that time, at 62, he had been Burkina Faso President for 26 years, but was little respected. He slunk around like a defeated man. He had not only betrayed his predecessor Captain Thomas Sankara who had implicit trust in him, he had also tried to abort the African dream. He seemed isolated and already condemned by history.
After being warned to get off the case and receiving death threats when he refused, the charred remains of Zongo, his brother, Yembi Ernest Zongo, fellow journalist, Blaise Liboudo and his driver, Abdouleye Ablasse Nikiema, were found on December 13, 1998 in his burnt out jeep. They had been shot before being burnt. After intense public pressure and protests, five members of Compaoré’s Presidential Guard were tried and later convicted for these murders.
Compaoré had all the power he could ever have wanted and the wealth he could accumulate, but like a man who swallowed a pestle, he could neither sit nor stand. He was like a man who head-butted a bee colony without wearing any protective clothing, not out of insanity, but because his colonial masters, intent on once again aborting the African dream, directed him to do so without thinking through the implications.
The Sankara government which was in power for four years, vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles within weeks and increased the literacy rate from 13 percent in 1983 to 73 per-cent in 1987. It built scores of schools and hospitals, including pharmacies in 5,384 villages. Within two years, the infant mortality rate dropped from 208 per 1,000 births to 145. Sankara argued that: “He who feeds you, controls you.
Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.