Attempts at Assassination of African Leaders for Opposing Imperialism: The Case of Ibrahim Traoré
Attempts at Assassination of African Leaders for Opposing Imperialism: The Case of Ibrahim Traoré
Bola A. Akinterinwa
The conduct and management of global affairs by the big powers is currently challenged by three categories of cold war politics: the ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ policies adopted by President Donald Trump; the reactive policy of ‘I tooism’ of countries like China, Iran and North Korea; and the ‘let-me-alone attitude’ of the weak onlookers of the world, especially the African countries that are singing again the songs of national sovereignty.
Without doubt, right from the time African states began to accede to national sovereignty as from the end of the 1950s, the untold story or over which there has been much silence is the colonial policy attitude of let them have the power of self-control while the responsibility for control of national resources is left for the colonial masters. In this regard, the colonial masters calculated very well by ensuring that Africans in their support, who were weak in heart and can be easily manipulated, were brought to power by all possible means. Those African leaders lead their countries to the detriment of the interests of their people but always to the advantage of their former colonial masters. Leaders that have the effrontery to confront the colonial powers were generally killed by their own people, but with the logistic support of foreign countries.
And true enough, in countries where assassination plan fails because of local resistance, post-colonial relationship was often made difficult and punitive. Guinea Conakry suffered that when the country refused to be part of the 1958 French Community which was established by General Charles de Gaulle. In 1963, the Togolese President, Sylvanus Olympio, was brutally killed during an alleged French-sponsored mercenary invasion, which prompted Nigeria under Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa to formulate an exception to the UN principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other sovereign countries. Thus, assassination of leaders for opposing imperialism has a long history. The assassination attempt of the Burkinabé President, Ibrahim Traoré, is not new but different in style.
Opposing Imperialism and Assassination Attempts
Opposing imperialism has been generally sanctioned more by assassination than by killing and murdering. An assassination is a murder which is considered illegal, unfair and unjust. Murder is simply the killing of a private individual. Assassination becomes a murder when it encompasses non-public influential figures. It is the murder of a public or influential figure for political or ideological considerations that makes it an assassination. Assassination is generally carried out secretly and the motivation is always political. As there is differentiation between killing, which is to end the life of someone or something, and dying which is to stop living, so are assassination and murder different. In other words, murder is the killing of another person with a deliberate intention that excludes the political. True, assassination is also an expression of murder except that its motivation has to be political while the target of murder is always not a political figure.
In the context of Africa, and particularly in the case of Burkina Faso, it is the conflict between the opposition to imperialism, on the one hand, and the non-preparedness of the imperialists to condone such opposition that largely explains the frequency of assassination attempts. The historiography of assassinations and assassination attempts in Africa has clearly shown that it is always those African leaders that are visibly challenging the colonial powers that are generally slated for killing or assassination. If the assassination plot fails, the efforts may be renewed and strengthened until the ultimate objective is achieved. This is how the eighteen assassination attempts on the life of Captain Ibrahim Traoré should be explained and understood. He is currently captivating international attention with his objectivity of purpose and clarity of focus. His humility and daring personality raises many questions on the minds of the threatened global powers in the West.
In this regard, we observe and posit here that end to imperialism is, at best, a dream. So cannot but be the situation of assassination attempts. International relations is necessarily a conflict system in which the rules of might, regardless of the ramifications, often define decision-taking. For instance, the principle of weighted voting applies in the financial institutions. It is a principle according to which the number of votes is determined by one’s capital investment into the organisation. Payment of assessed dues, as distinct from voluntary contributions, does not imply equality. This is because computations are based on a certain percentage of GDPs of member states who do not have the same annual GDPs.
There is also no equality when a distinction is made between Nuclear Weapons States and non-nuclear weapons countries. Some countries have the privilege of developing nuclear capability while some others cannot. This situation engenders inequality and unfairness, as well as injustice. This also naturally generates opposition and animosity. More concernedly, foreign policy objectives also vary according to States. This is why it cannot but be difficult to ensure international peace and security when national interests are operationally in conflict.
For instance, Donald Trump’s policy of ‘America First’ is undoubtedly very patriotic at the domestic level, but when patriotism generates animosity that impacts national security and survival, at the external level, then that type of patriotism needs to be redefined. The US-China policies of order versus counter-order can only generate disorder to the detriment of global peace. The United States currently finds it difficult to accept that it is already treading the path of decline and that China is already bracing up to step into its shoes of global leadership. Conjecturally put, the future of ‘America First’ policy is not bright. It has the great potential to wean even before Donald Trump leaves power. This is simply because of the increasing anti-America sentiments in several parts of the world of today.
First, there is the I-tooism stand of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The BRICS owes its establishment to the disregard for the global economic institutions dominated by the United States. The International Monetary Fund that has the responsibility ‘to promote international monetary cooperation, facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and foster exchange stability,’ is one of the major targets of the BRICS which wants its own currency in use and reform of the IMF and the World Bank.
Secondly, another manifestation of I-tooism is that of Iran who wants to be a nuclear power like the Nuclear Weapons States, that is the P-5 of the United Nations Security Council, but to which the United States is vehemently opposed. The United States has suggested to Iran to depend on the importation of uranium rather than trying to produce fuel for its nuclear plants. Iran has flagrantly rejected the American demand because it wants to acquire its own uranium enrichment capacity for its own civil nuclear programme.
In the same vein, North Korea is an advocate of I-tooism. Considering that the United States and its allies waged war against North Korea during the 1950-1953 Korean War, North Korea not only wants to develop nuclear capability to counter the threats from the Western world, but also to showcase the point that it has capacity and capability to develop nuclear technology. Having nuclear power is seen as a manifestation of national prestige. Even though the capacity to develop the nuclear power is largely a resultant from the 1959 agreement done by the then Soviet Union and North Korea to build nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, there is no disputing the fact that the authorities of Pyongyang have gone beyond the need for peaceful uses of their nuclear energy. North Korea is already talking about its capacity to launch nuclear missiles that go as far as American soil.
Consequently, America First policy has its own different interpretation in many other countries. For Iran and North Korea to be insisting on the needs to define their security strategy by themselves and to be insisting on themselves and not on the nuclear umbrella of any foreign country, is also about self-assertion first. The political mentality of the North Koreans is that the United States is the successor country to Japan who occupied North Korea from 1910 to 1945 and therefore seen as an imperialist and capitalist per excellence. For North Korea, Americans are enemies and therefore requiring North Koreans not being taken by surprise.
But what happens to the third category of cold war onlookers? The policy strategy is not simply to sit down and look, but to prevent the carriage of the first two types of cold war to their territories, as well as underscoring the no compromise with their national sovereignty. In this regard, the onlookers place emphasis on promotion of self-identity. Local languages are promoted to the status of lingua franca. De-Frenchification programmes are put in place. Places with French colonial names are changed, and development of local human capacity is prioritised. Francophone African countries also harmonise their efforts in the spirit of solidarity.
With this type of development, if Ibrahim Traoré is assassinated one day, what will become of his anti-imperialism struggle? Are Africans of today truly interested in any anti-imperialism struggle? This is still a moot question but time will tell, especially bearing in mind that colonial power or any given terrorist cannot come directly to plant bombs near the presidential palace to kill the president without in-house complicity. The military can be good and bad. Let us interrogate the military situation in Burkina Faso to justify our position.
Ibrahim Traoré’s Case: Need for caution
From the foregoing, when discussing assassination attempts, we simply mean efforts made to take life out of public figures deliberately and for political reasons. In the process of an assassination plan, a situation of murder can arise. Looking at the records of assassination attempts to kill the Burkinabé leader, Ibrahim Traoré, it can be rightly argued that he really is a living dead. He has survived eighteen assassination attempts in Burkina Faso. His life is under permanent threat of possible assassination
The many assassination attempts at his life raise several questions on when there can be an end to imperialism, how it can be ended, who can or will have the capacity to end it, and how the people who feel that they are being oppressed can be permanently prevented from complaining against foreign oppression and from taking up arms to fight for their own survival. Ibrahim Traoré is indisputably one of those fighting imperialism even though reasons of anti-terror agenda are what are frequently adduced for his coming to power. If he has an anti-terrorist agenda and he has anti-imperialism disposition, should that be the reason why eighteen attempts to assassinate him be made? Why is it that African people, African soldiers, close collaborators often accept to be used to kill other compatriots? What really can be said to be the offences of Ibrahim Traoré to warrant the permanent agenda to take his life? Why should the big powers think that Burkina Faso can be permanently suppressed or that there will never be an end to hegemonic domination of the Burkinabés?
And perhaps more disturbingly, why should people who purport to be fighting terrorist also become leakers of state security information to the terrorist enemies? Fraternising with foreign powers to undermine one’s country is the greatest crime against one’s nation regardless of whatever the offences of the leader of the country.
Traoré’s well-known offences include his opposition to neo-colonialism, his anti-French policies, his decision to open the Burkinabé political doors to the Chinese and Russians, and perhaps most importantly, his dream of an Africa that will be completely free from political chicanery and dependency on Europe for survival. Even though the eighteen assassination plans have failed, we still strongly believe Ibrahim Traoré is only dead in body, in high spirits with his soul, and therefore no longer capable of dying because his ideology is indestructible. There cannot but be new Ibrahim Traorés in Burkina Faso if he is killed today. This is because all the arrangements to get him dead were successfully perfected. By the last minute to detonate the bomb to kill Ibrahim Traoré, he again miraculously received the mercy and goodness of God and his life was saved.
One rationale for this can be God’s saying that if He be with you, who can be against you? Whoever is against any person that is enjoying divine protection is only against in vain. In fact, with every assassination attempt, Traoré dies and buried, but rises with the next attempt. Every new assassination attempt is a resurrection in the mania of Jesus Christ. God is simply preserving him to continue to serve and deliver his people.
While still striving to serve his people, he continues to be seriously humiliated in different ways. One such and recent humiliation was the mistreatment he was given in an Air France flight en route Ouagadougou. He was checked into the business class with Seat No. 2a. When a French chief executive arrived last minute to request for a seat in the business class and there was the need to find a seat for him by force of necessity, the manager of the aircraft went round and looked for someone who did not look elegant or cute enough or befitting enough to be in the business class. It was by design or coincidence that he identified Ibrahim Traoré she asked to show his boarding pass. Traoré humbly obliged. He was told to move to the non-business class with a promise to be refunded the difference in price. He refused, asking what might have led to the disregard. He paid for the business class. If he had wanted the economy class, he should have done that before then.
True enough, he never behaved as if he was anything in the aircraft and in the society at large. He dressed simply. He always remains cool, calm and collected. He was even threatened to be unseated, but he never lost his calm. On the descent of the aircraft in Ouaga, the lady manger and tormentor and the crew began to see a crowd of soldiers on the ground. They were astonished as to what was up in the country. In a nutshell, they eventually knew that everyone on the tarmac was waiting for Ibrahim Traoré, the President of Burkina Faso. The aircraft manager and even the French executive on whose behalf the humiliation was carried out were arrested and taken away for further inquiry by security operatives. This is one manifestation of imperialism that the new generation of Francophone Africans are currently fighting.
Even before the incident on Monday, 21st April, 2025 there had been altercations between Air France and the Ouagadougou authorities. When Ibrahim Traoré took over power, the Air France suspended all flights to Burkina Faso, alleging that the country was a security risk in a red zone, President Traoré countered the claim and argued that it was a false narrative and that the French government was only consciously tainting the international image of his country. Eventually, when Air France later came back to request for permission to resume flights to the country, Traoré demanded that the notion of a security risk in a red zone be first of all retracted and for Air France to accept to declare publicly whether Burkina Faso is now a green zone or still a red zone.
With this type of self-confidence and daring attitude, France and its allies cannot but be unhappy that their honour is being challenged by a young gentleman. At about 34 years of age, with strong determination, and political focus, it cannot be surprising that Ibrahim Traoré has been attacked eighteen times and that he has also survived the eighteen assassination attempts. He is the de facto leader of the Alliance des Etats du Sahel. Not much is being heard from the other Francophone neighbours about their roles in containing the unending assassination attempts.
The eighteenth assassination attempt took place on April 16, 2025. Before then, the Burkinabé intelligence had been closely monitoring the making of the assassination attempt for several weeks. Reports on the attempt are not different from the manner in which there were Boko Haramists in the Government of President Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria. There were supporters of the Boko Haram who consciously frustrated government efforts in the containment of terrorism by leaking security secrets to the enemy. In Burkina Faso there are also sympathisers of the Jihadist terrorists in the government of Ibrahim Traoré. The Burkinabé intelligence said a well-placed individual was revealing every government strategy to deal decisively with the terrorists. The location of defence and security forces and their operations were revealed to the terrorists. Intelligence enquiry revealed that the attempt to assassinate the leader originated from the Burkinabé army. It was master-minded by Bahari Abdraman, a well-trusted military officer. His companions included Compaoré Giovanni; a former non-commissioned officer, Zerbalaku; Commander Ouedraogo Frederick; and Cabor Constantine who had gone to Europe for military training. On October 15, 1987 Thomas Sankara was killed in a coup d’état organised by his bosom friend, Blaise Compaoré. How do we define a good or a bosom friend? To what extent is the loyalty of any defence and security force?
With this development, what does anti-terror war mean when the victims of terrorism are the very people aiding and abetting terrorism? What future has Africa in terms of sovereignty when the people are themselves the moles? Soldiers that swear to defend their nation are the same people revealing military secrets to the enemy? Who is Bahari Abdraman, the assassination chief plotter, really working directly for; the terrorists or foreign powers? Are there not two different groups of terrorists militating against political stability in Burkina Faso: traditional Jihadist terrorists and terrorists working for foreign powers? What future has Burkina Faso if Ibrahim Traoré is assassinated today? Who wants to succeed him? What type of training is given to African soldiers when sent abroad? Why is it that those who have had training abroad often play most active parts or lead coups d’état and assassination agenda? Why is it that presidential guards or people believed to be trust worthy that always betray the trust and oath to defend their nation? Is it not a serious shame on any Burkinabé military officer to prefer a bribe of $5m to securing his country? Accepting money to kill a compatriot is most shameful, Shame on the plotters, their children and their entire family. Unconstitutional change of government may not be good but Ibrahim Traoré has clearly shown that there can be a benevolent unconstitutional change of government because his government has lifted Burkina Faso within the past two years of his coming to power in 2022.
Bola A. Akinterinwa The conduct and management of global affairs by the big powers is currently challenged by three categories of cold war politics: the ‘America First’ and ‘Make America
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