Right now, you can see what they are trying to do to eliminate my good friend Ibrahim Traore. He survived many assassination attempts. Because when you are doing well, they will take you out. As the late Samora Machel once said when you hear the former colonisers say you are good, you must pause and ask yourself, what evil you are committing against your people. – Professor P. L. O. Lumumba
With 18 documented tries to topple him so far, the President of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, seems set to beat the record of his inspiration and model, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The late Libyan leader survived at least 28 known mostly CIA-led assassination attempts during his 40-year rule before the NATO forces descended on him for the final onslaught in 2011. What is scarier is that sooner or later, the same fate probably awaits Traore who came to power on September 30th 2022, at the age of 34.
Beginning from 2023, several shots at his life were recorded. The last coup attempt was on the 16th April 2025. He has even resigned to the inevitability of such a fate as he once told an interviewer, “My family begged me to step down; they feared I will be killed like Thomas Sankara. But I told them even if I die, it will be good for Burkina Faso.”
Buzzing in the social media platforms for his revolutionary ideas and transformative leadership, Captain Ibrahim Traore is being described variously as the Moses of the Blackman; the new Gaddafi; President of Africa, according to Facebook and other platforms. Meanwhile, mainstream media dependent on the neo-colonial capitalist order are bare of the uplifting news from the Sahel states. Not even the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) with its global presence deems it fit to focus on the fascinating changes taking place in Burkina Faso.
According to Beverly Ochieng, a Kenyan researcher at global consultancy firm, Control Risks, “Traoré’s impact is huge. I have even heard politicians and authors in countries like Kenyasay: ‘This is it. He is the man.’ His messages reflect the age we are living in, when many Africans are questioning the relationship with the West, and why there is still so much poverty in such a resource-rich continent,” she said. His efforts to take back his country for his countrymen included setting up a state-owned mining company, requiring foreign firms to give it a 15% stake in their local operations and to transfer skills to Burkinabé people.
The spectacular silence is strategic. On one hand, former colonial overlords now under the command of the USA cannot accept the total dismantling of the construct. France, the US and Belgium remain the most vicious colonialists ahead of Britain, Portugal, Germany and Spain because of their total dependence on criminal concessions from their former colonies. Theircenturies-old addiction to plunder plus the depletion of natural resources in their home countries make the West’s war againsttotal independence for Africa a life-and–death matter.
On the other hand, Nigerian leaders are afraid of showcasing such spectacular service delivery by an administration with much less human and natural resources. The fact that Burkina Faso’s awakening is led by the youngest non-royal President in the whole world makes it particularly provocative in a nation with a 70 per cent youth majority in the population and 80-year olds in power.
Coups in the contemporary context are complex webs of internal betrayals and international interests. Since the 1960s, African countries lost dozens of their patriotic leaders to professional killers on the prowl. They swarm in the shadows – skulking, stalking, signalling, lurking and lying in wait. Those in theircross-hairs are often described as the walking-dead.
Colonial powers’ arrogant mentality cedes only political power while control of national resources is left for the overseas masters. For this purpose, only leaders weak in heart and who can be easily manipulated are brought or propped into power by all possible means. Such leaders lead their countries to the detriment of the interests of their people but always to the advantage of their former colonial masters.
Patriotic political power-holders are automatic personae non grata. Past martyrs of the macabre regime change operations in Africa include Nigeria’s Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Guinea’s Ahmed Sekou Toure, the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Togo’s Sylvanus Olympio, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Nigeria’s General Murtala Muhammad, Burkina Faso’s Captain Thomas Sankara, Egypt’s Muhammad Morsi, Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Historians have so far counted 64 covert regime change operations across the world by the United States mostly led by the CIA and six overt regime change operations, or open war between 1945 and 1991 alone. This is a distinct form of statecraft designed to assassinate an undesirable leader, make a coup, fix an election, buy an election or create unrest to topple a regime. Only a few escaped with their lives – General Idi Amin of Uganda, General Oumar Al-Bashir of Sudan and lately President Bashar Al-Asad of Syria.
World Record Holder for surviving assassination attempts was Cuba’s Fidel Castro who died at the age of 90 after enduring an estimated 638 attempts on his life by the CIA starting from the 1960s. The Americans used every means imaginable: booby-trapped buildings, poisoned cigars, exploding seashells and even a femme fatal, his girlfriend Marita Lorenz. He still ruled for nearly five decades and voluntarily stepped down due to health reasons in 2008. Coming a close second could be President Yasser Arafat of Palestine, who survived some 208 attempts by Israel’s MOSSAD before he was finally poisoned with poloniumin 2004. His putsch was especially necessary to kick-start the on-going wiping out of Palestinians from their homeland.
Currently, Captain Traoré’s co-candidates for cancellation include Colonel Assim Goita of Mali, General Abdul-Rahman Tchiani of Niger, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, President Duma Boko of Botswana, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Kim Jung Oon of North Korea. Other targets around them are activists, intellectuals, journalists and writers who share their worldview. The common denominator is their determination to dismantle foreign dictatorship and independently develop their nations using the natural resources that were hitherto looted by imperial powers.
The savage system does not spare even its own scions when theyrun against the imperial interests. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President and hero of the American Civil War survived five assassination attempts before being fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. Some of the schemes to take him out included a plot in Baltimore to knife him down; send him yellow fever and small-pox invested clothing, two attempts by shooters and a plot to blow up the White House. His sin was signing the Emancipation Declaration that ended slavery.
Charles de Gaulle reportedly survived 31 attempts on his life mostly by the Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS), a French terrorist group that opposed his decision to grant Algeria independence from colonial rule in 1962. At last, he was machine-gunned inside his car. Similarly, in 1969, President John F. Kennedy was shot dead in broad daylight for his moves to make America work for Americans rather than the Zionist cabal.
Africa’s on-going political and socioeconomic revolution is a revolting prospect for the West. Neo-colonialism is designed to survive on sucking resources and suffocation of its satellites. In countries like Iran and North Korea where assassination plans fail because of local resistance, relationships are often made problematic and punitive. Sanctions, surreptitious sorties and sovereign violations are the order of the day.
In the context of Africa, and particularly in the case of Burkina Faso, it is the conflict between the opposition to imperialism and the non-preparedness of the imperialists to condone such opposition that accounts for the frequency of assassination attempts. African leaders that openly challenge the colonial powers are generally slated for deposition, killing or assassination. Captain Ibrahim Traoré is currently captivating international attention with his objectivity of purpose and clarity of focus. His humility and daring personality threatens global powers in the West. His service delivery dwarfs democracy which has failed to give hope to the youth. Democracy is on the verge of getting ditched; it has not delivered jobs or better education and healthcare anywhere in Africa.
Until recently, ending imperialism used to be, at best, a distant dream. Now with the information and communication revolution, there is hope. One sure sign is the increasing anti-America and anti-Zionist sentiments in most parts of the world today. Power blocs such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) owe its establishment to the disenchantment with global economic institutions dominated by the United States. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have been exposed as instruments of exploitation and deliberate under-development.
The big question now is: if the Burkinabe President is assassinated one day, what will become of his anti-imperialism struggle? Are Africans now truly interested in and ready for the fight for full freedom? The 54 countries on the continent may not be equally ready for emancipation, but there are thousands of Traores underway. Ideology is indestructible. If left to grow, the legend of Traore might also end up swallowing African leaders who have no vision beyond their personal aggrandizement.
Muhammad Hassan-Tom writes from Abuja
