Sahel Reporter

A contested legacy in Ouagadougou

In Burkina Faso, the figure of Thomas Sankara has long since ceased to be a purely historical reference. It now occupies a central place in the political narrative of Ibrahim Traoré’s administration. Yet beneath the official tributes, the military ceremonies and the rising mausoleum, a delicate question persists: is the current government gradually appropriating Sankara’s image in order to consolidate its own political legitimacy?

The convergence is not merely a matter of outside observation. It is visible in the regime’s own official communications.

A monthly ritual and a symbolic handover

Since 2026, the Burkinabè government has organised a military ceremony dedicated to Thomas Sankara every month, an initiative presented as having been introduced on Ibrahim Traoré’s instructions. The official discourse goes further still: during a tribute held in February 2026, the president’s chief of staff declared that Sankara’s “torch” is now carried by Ibrahim Traoré.

This staging of historical continuity raises a fundamental question: does Ibrahim Traoré simply wish to honour Sankara, or is he seeking to present himself as the man who has taken up and continued his struggle?

The distinction matters.

Thomas Sankara belongs to the history of Burkina Faso and to the memory of millions of Africans. But there also exists a family memory, upheld in particular by his widow Mariam Sankara, his children, and his brothers and sisters. On this point, the relationship between the family and the transitional authorities has never been as consensual as the official narrative might suggest.

The rupture of February 2023

The most telling precedent dates back to February 2023.

Following the exhumation of the bodies of Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions, the government decided to proceed with their reinterment at the site of the former Conseil de l’Entente, which had become the Thomas Sankara Memorial. The choice carried heavy symbolism: it was precisely on this site that Sankara and his companions were assassinated on 15 October 1987.

The Sankara family opposed the decision.

On 16 February 2023, Mariam Sankara, her two sons Philippe and Auguste, and the brothers and sisters of the late president appealed directly to Ibrahim Traoré, asking him to abandon the plan. They proposed three alternative sites: the Dagnoën cemetery, the Garden of Friendship and the Yennenga Garden.

The disagreement then became public.

The family considered that the decision had been taken without genuine consensus and refused to take part in the ceremony. On 21 February, it confirmed that it would be neither present nor represented at the burial.

On 23 February, the ceremony went ahead regardless.

The authorities pressed on.

The family, for its part, kept its distance.

This sequence is essential to understanding what followed, for Traoré’s regime would gradually turn Sankara’s memory into a central element of its own political narrative.

From commemoration to state heritage

Since that period, Sankara’s institutional presence has only intensified.

The mausoleum intended for Thomas Sankara and his twelve companions was built on the memorial site. Ibrahim Traoré laid its foundation stone on 15 October 2023, before its inauguration in May 2025. The project is officially presented as intended to preserve and promote the political legacy of the father of the August 1983 revolution.

In 2026, this memorial policy acquired yet another dimension with the monthly military ceremonies.

Through these initiatives, the authorities no longer merely commemorate Sankara. They organise, institutionalise and stage his memory.

This is where one of the major political stakes lies.

In the official narrative, Ibrahim Traoré can thus appear as the man who has finally fully rehabilitated Sankara, restored his memory and taken up his struggle.

Government discourse openly suggests as much. In June 2026, during a tribute at the Memorial, the minister of foreign affairs even stated that Sankara’s torch is carried “with dignity and commitment” by Ibrahim Traoré.

Such a presentation mechanically brings the two figures closer together in the collective imagination: Sankara, the assassinated revolutionary; Traoré, the young captain presented as the one who would take up the torch.

The risk of a narrative built around Sankara’s body

It is precisely here that the family question becomes central.

For Thomas Sankara’s relatives, his legacy cannot be reduced to an instrument of political communication or a backdrop for legitimising power.

Sankara’s body, his remains, his burial place and his family memory carry an intimate dimension that the state cannot entirely absorb.

Yet since 2023, the authorities have taken control of a large part of the institutional staging of that memory: reinterment, mausoleum, military ceremonies, official tributes, discourse on sovereignty and constant references to the revolution.

The paradox is striking: the government that today claims Sankara’s political heritage is also the one with which part of his family found itself at odds over the very manner of disposing of his remains.

This is not to assert that Ibrahim Traoré personally seeks to “take” Sankara from his family. Such an intention would be a matter of interpretation and would require further evidence.

But the facts allow another observation: the regime is gradually constructing a narrative in which Ibrahim Traoré appears as the political heir of Captain Sankara and as the man who has taken up his struggle.

This construction is far from trivial.

It allows the current authorities to inscribe themselves in an exceptionally powerful revolutionary lineage in Burkina Faso. It also provides them with a historical reference capable of lending ideological depth to their own discourse on sovereignty, pan-Africanism and independence.

Researchers have moreover noted the frequency with which Traoré invokes Sankara’s memory, and the way his political discourse echoes certain themes associated with the former president, notably sovereignty and the rejection of external dependency.

A memory that belongs to power?

This is ultimately the most sensitive question.

Thomas Sankara is not merely a statue, a mausoleum or a military ceremony. He is also a family history, a painful memory and a political struggle whose interpretation cannot be imposed by decree.

The transitional authorities may legitimately honour his memory. They may restore sites, organise ceremonies and preserve his archives. But another question remains: can they, in the name of that rehabilitation, present themselves as the natural custodians of his legacy?

The precedent of 2023 shows in any case that the Sankara family has not always accepted the authorities’ choices regarding this memory.

And that is where the ambiguity of the current narrative lies.

By repeatedly presenting itself as the one that “carries the torch” of Sankara, Ibrahim Traoré’s government risks shifting the memory of a man assassinated in 1987 towards another story: that of a contemporary power seeking to inscribe its own name in the continuity of the revolution.

Sankara left behind a body of work and a body of thought. Traoré is now building his own power. Between the two, the memory of Thomas Sankara has become a major political issue.