We encourage aid that aids us in doing away with
aid...Welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating
us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic,
political, and cultural affairs…” Thomas
Sankara
My son was overcome with excitement when I told him that I was taking him to watch the “Black Panther” in 3D. It’s a movie based on a
superhero, who rules a country called Wakanda (don’t look at a map, it does not
exist). As I sat there watching the
movie with my son and spending $20 on just the popcorn and soda (movie theaters
are now so expensive, they should consider having financial aid offices…just
saying), I remembered one of my own superheroes, who unlike T’Challa, lived
amongst us!! His name was Thomas Sankara
and was the president of Burkina Faso from 1983-1987.
Sankara ruled a country that unlike Wakanda did not
possess Vibranium! It was a country short on natural and human resources,
dependent on food aid, dealing with harsh weather conditions and steeped in
corruption. Sankara took over and was determined to uplift his people, his
nation and his continent. So he started with himself and his cabinet, he cut
his own salary to $450 per month. Now that’s superhero right there, to have
access to all your nation’s wealth, however small it is, and refuse to put it
into your own bank account. No one in his government could fly first class
anymore, Sankara said, “whether you are in first class or economy, everyone
gets there at the same time!!” and all government expensive cars were to be
sold and only the cheapest cars were to be driven by government officials.
Bottom-line, everyone in power had to sacrifice and lead from the top.
The limited resources were used to empower the
farmers to free the country from food aid and increase agricultural production
to improve the economy of the country. Have
you been to Burkina Faso? If you have not been please google it (unlike
Wakanda, it exists). It has low and erratic rain fall, and limited, poor arable
land and yet during Sankara’s presidency (in 4 short years) he was able to take
his country and make it food independent. Food production went up and
eventually Burkina Faso became an exporter of agriculture products!! So how did
he do it?
Besides, not sitting in his office all the time under air
conditioning (he actually refused to have AC in his office) and not flying to
Europe and Asia for vacation, he went out amongst his people and tried to first
harness the human resources within his own nation. Sankara, was a hands-on
president that got out there and worked on projects, whether it was laying down
rail-roads, or planting trees, he was there. When people saw that, they came
out and by now the whole nation was building their own country.
Thomas Sankara, did not need to bring experts from
Washington, London or Paris to tell him what was good for Burkina Faso, when
the experts were right there in Ouahigouya, Ougadougou and Po. He did not
have to attend conferences half-way around the world and collect per diem to
know that stealing from your own country was wrong.
He understood the power of unity within an African
Union (AU) which would be independent and unify within itself to empower its
citizen and continent, an AU that would move away from a dependency mentality
that enriches a few and subjugates the rest. I wonder what Sankara would say
that a country that has no resources (China) build the new AU building for a
continent that has all the resources! Perhaps he would say something that would
get him killed!!
And that’s what happened to my superhero, he was
killed in 1987, by a coup orchestrated locally, regionally and internationally. The true nature of his super powers was his actions,
which like Vibranium, if applied can transform Africa, or for that matter any
region or any country into a fully-functionally, strong, healthy and rich
society. The ideas of Sankara sits
ideally, to be emulated by the wise leaders yet to come.
As I held my son’s hand on our way out of the
theater, I told him to remind me to tell him about my superhero named Sankara…
