Burkina Faso’s Malevolent Propaganda – The Nation Newspaper

Of the three military officers who forcefully took over the reins of office in the West African countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic, Ibrahim Traore, an army captain, has run the most effective propaganda machine built on what his supporters describe as Pan-Africanist, anti-imperialist ideology. At bottom, however, he has merely substituted Western hegemony with Russian hegemony. The latter is operated by Russian Africa Corps, a rechristening of the notorious Wagner Forces. Banded together in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), the three countries kicked out France and the United States, and delinked from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which had denounced the sacking of democracy in those countries.

Capt. Traore’s propaganda exaggerates or fabricates economic development and social conditions in Burkina Faso, with most of the country’s economic indicators showing no sign of improvements. Even the main coup goals of solving the refugee crisis caused by insurgency, rebuilding the economy, and curbing the jihadist insurgency that has tripled death toll since the coup, have remained intractable. Instead, civil rights have been abridged, and democracy, suspended in 2022 after the coup, has been put on the backburner. Last Wednesday, less than one week after Capt. Traore claimed to have exposed a coup plot, thousands of demonstrators observing a ‘global day of support for Capt. Traore’ marched on Western embassies in London, Paris, Accra, Ouagadougou, Kingston, and other African cities to compel ‘imperialist powers’ to hands off Burkina Faso and the AES states. Some of them even threatened to burn down London should Capt. Traore die of natural causes. Let them try that with President Donald Trump.

The demonstrations, like the propaganda support for Capt. Traore, were reportedly inspired and funded by Russia which has sought to expand its turf wars with the West to the African continent. They have been effective, even if conditions on the ground in the AES have deteriorated. It is a mark of the specious reasoning assailing Africans, their love for showmanship, and their inability to take the long-term view of their future that they have once again embraced dictatorship and submitted and committed to an even more reactionary Russian tyrant. It is a sign of the poverty of thinking that Capt. Traore’s oppressive rule and malevolent and Russian-inspired propaganda have drawn applause from some Nigerians.