Sivextro montanaro thomas sankara biography

On the 75th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Sankara, our West African correspondent writes about his revolutionary life and legacy

Thomas Sankara was the revolutionary former President of Burkina Faso, a land-locked country in West Africa.

Sankara became a hero of the African left due to his implementation of bold, imaginative policies designed to transform the lives of workers and peasants in his country, but also to overcome the terrible plague of underdevelopment, which was a legacy of French Colonialism.

His assassination by his close comrades on 15 October 1987 was a massive loss to the progressive forces in Africa.

Never, since the assassination of Patrice Lumumba of the Congo in 1961 by imperialist forces, was an African president openly mourned by progressive public opinion and the ‘street’ in Africa.

Living in Nigeria at the time of his assassination, l have vivid memories of the pain and anger displayed by ordinary working people