The energy and excitement generated by the unorthodox pro-people policies of Burkinabe revolutionary leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, invoke parallels with Ghana’s June 4 ‘revolution’, which will be marked in Accra this week.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), which won the December 2024 elections, will celebrate its first June 4 anniversary back in power, but without the presence of its charismatic founder, Flt-Lt Jerry John (JJ) Rawlings, who died in 2020.
After an abortive May 15 coup, JJ Rawlings burst onto Ghana’s political stage on June 4, 1979 demanding “nothing less than a revolution”.
Like Rawlings who overthrew military leader General Fred Akuffo in a ‘housecleaning exercise’ in 1979, Traore overthrew military Burkinabe leader, Lt-Col Paul-Henri Damiba.
Like Rawlings, who was 32 on June 4 and 34 at the time of his ‘second coming’ on December 31, 1982, Traore came to power in September 2022 at age 34 and at 37 today is the world’s youngest leader.
But unlike Rawlings, Traore has not faced the frustrations of an economic squeeze or the exigencies of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity programme and the subsequent political fall-out with ideological allies that dampened the revolutionary fervour in Ghana in the early 1980s.
Traore is widely admired for his bold vision, practical action and principled leadership. Turning down assistance from the IMF, Traore, who studied geology at the University of Ouagadougou, established the country’s first gold refinery. It has the capacity to process 400 kg of gold a day.
This enabled Burkina Faso to pay off its debts and redefine its relationship with international moneylenders. Traore quit the CFA zone and distanced the country from its former colonial master, France.
Together with Mali and Niger, he pulled Burkina Faso out of the Economic Community of West African States and formed an alternative regional cooperation arrangement, the Alliance of Sahel States.
He has beefed up national security and introduced sweeping initiatives to improve health care, maternal mortality and access to food, housing and economic opportunities.
The determination with which Traore has introduced these epoch-defining changes raises the question why the massive popularity enjoyed by JJ Rawlings after June 4 did not translate into similar actions in Ghana, especially given the abundance of gold here.
According to NDC stalwart, Fritz Baffour: “At that time, the mindset was not on gold, which was run by the aristocracy in England, who would find ways to offset any plans.”
He added: “It’s only now we realise that if we had backed up our currency with gold, we could have created a new paradigm.”
Baffour describes Traore’s actions as a “signpost and a revelation of what Ghana always had in its hands.”
A member of the NDC Regional Council of Elders, Baffour is a former MP and Minister of Information under former president John Evans Atta-Mills.
President Traore’s pan-Africanist credentials and respect for the close relationship between Rawlings and revolutionary Burkinabe leader, Thomas Sankara, who came to power in 1983 and was assassinated in 1987, have seen him draw closer to Ghana since the NDC returned to power.
Traore attended President Mahama’s inauguration in Accra in January. In May, he invited the Rawlings family to Ouagadougou for the naming of a street to honour the late Ghanaian former President.
Traore himself has faced a series of assassination attempts, the latest in April, and US criticism of his leadership.
On April 3, in remarks to the US Senate, AFRICOM chief, General Michael Langley, accused President Traore of misusing Burkina Faso’s gold reserves for his own personal protection and said the US should help Burkina Faso in its fight against terrorism.
Established in 2007, AFRICOM, the United States Africa Command, is a unified combatant command of the US Department of Defence responsible for military operations and activities in Africa.
But Langley’s remarks were seen as rooted in a colonial attitude of superiority. They prompted a backlash in Africa and sparked a worldwide protest movement centred on the organisation of “March for Traore” events.
Former President J.J. Rawlings
The global marches come amid fears that Traore could suffer a similar fate to pan-African heroes who were toppled or brutally murdered after being seen as a threat to the world order.
These include Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.
Two such marches have been held in Accra, drawing the interest of a broad spectrum of people including political activists, youth leaders and major celebrities.
Reggie Rockstone, known as the father of hiplife music, shared the reason for his support for the Traore Global March with the Graphic’s Your Ghana, My Ghana.
“If Traore gets taken out, the big question ‘what do we do now?’ becomes a very deadly question,” Rockstone said.
“They’re testing us to see how far they can push us. If they take him out and we do nothing, there will be scary times ahead.”
Rockstone urged his social media followers to replace their profile pictures with images of Traore and, with his wife, Dr Zilla Limann, launched a new line of Traore’s iconic t-shirts.
Rockstone, who developed through hiplife music the art of “rap in your own language”, believes it is important to use celebrity status to develop consciousness about the continent.
“We’ve got the young ones oblivious of what’s taking place.
They’re distracted by social media,” he said.
Rockstone defines himself as a pan-Africanist influenced by the Nkrumaism of his father, renowned fashion designer, Ricci Saint Osei, and the Black Panther activism of his years lived in New York.
Another person drawn to the march was Akua Manfo, a pan-Africanist writer and social media personality popularly known as Blakofe. She explains that she was in the market on Inauguration Day when she overheard two young boys excitedly recounting the stir created by Traore during President Mahama’s inauguration.
“Traore is a living Sankara,” says Blakofe, who has dedicated her life to keeping Sankara’s vision alive through her writings and activism.
When she saw a flyer advertising the first “Walk with Traore” march in April, she jumped at the opportunity to make the march a success and help organise a second march on Africa Day on May 25.
A lead organiser of the Africa Day march for Traore was Ernesto Yeboah, Commander in Chief of the Economic Fighters League, which models itself on the Economic Freedom Fighters movement led by Julius Malema in South Africa.
But the Ghanaian context is very different from the South African one and getting people out on the streets is difficult, Yeboah says. He says this is not just because of religion but also education.
“In Ghana, our textbooks still talk about the benefits of slavery and colonialism and the whole population is subjected to this kind of thinking and training,” Yeboah says.
He contrasts this with education in the former settler economies of East and Southern Africa, which emphasises the Mau Mau tradition, brutal racial and apartheid oppression, mass mobilisation and the revolutionary roots of democracy.
Given this context, getting 500 people out to march on a Sunday was a success that speaks to the Traore effect.
But Ghana is still haunted by the ghosts of June 4 and its successor would-be revolution, December 31.
Traore’s rising status as a global icon committed to a plan that uplifts his people first and foremost may help Ghanaians to reassess where we went wrong in failing to fuel our own revolution in the 1980s.
Pivotal figures have gone too soon. But an open and sincere debate by others who were there at the time could help bring healing and lay some of the ghosts to rest.
The author is a journalist and economic historian specialising in economic development