THOMAS SANKARA

Sankara came to power in Upper Volta in August 1983 at thirty-three. Within a year he renamed the country Burkina Faso — "land of upright people" — combining words from Mooré and Dioula, and commissioned a new anthem and flag.

In roughly four years his government vaccinated millions of children against meningitis, yellow fever, and measles in a matter of weeks; ran mass literacy campaigns; built schools, clinics, roads, and rail with volunteer labour; planted millions of trees against desertification; and pushed land reform that redistributed holdings from traditional chiefs.

He outlawed forced marriage and female genital mutilation, appointed women to government, and encouraged men to take on domestic work — positions that were radical in the region and remain contested.

He cut ministerial salaries including his own, sold the government's Mercedes fleet and made the cheapest car available the official state vehicle, and refused to have his portrait hung in public buildings.

At the Organisation of African Unity summit in July 1987 he argued that African states should refuse to pay colonial-era debt, warning that any leader who did so alone would not survive. He was assassinated in a coup on 15 October 1987, aged thirty-seven. Blaise Compaoré took power and held it for twenty-seven years; a Burkinabè court convicted him in absentia over the killing in 2022.