Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara governed Burkina Faso for four years and was murdered by his closest friend. Born in 1949 in Upper Volta to a mixed Mossi and Fulani family, he trained as an officer in Madagascar, where he witnessed popular uprisings, and returned a Marxist. He played the guitar and rode a motorcycle. He became prime minister in 1983, was arrested, and was released by a coup led by his friend Blaise Compaoré, which brought him to power in August 1983 at thirty-three. He renamed the country Burkina Faso, land of upright people, combining words from two of its languages. The programme was radical and fast. Some 2.5 million children were vaccinated against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks. Ten million trees were planted against desertification. Land was nationalised and redistributed from feudal landlords, and wheat production roughly doubled in three years. Railway track was laid by volunteer labour when foreign funding was refused. He outlawed forced marriage, polygamy and female genital cutting, appointed women to the cabinet, and encouraged them into the army — an agenda without parallel in the region at the time. He cut his own salary to about $450 a month, sold the government fleet of Mercedes and replaced them with the cheapest car available, and refused air conditioning in his office. He denounced foreign debt at the OAU in 1987, arguing that refusal to pay should be collective. Compaoré's men shot him at a meeting in October 1987. Compaoré ruled for twenty-seven years and was convicted of the murder in absentia in 2022.
- Lived: 1949 CE – 1987 CE
- Nationality: Burkinabe
- Roles: head_of_state, revolutionary, military_leader
