Thread by @OzorNdiOzor

It’s a sad Reality that those who shines the brightest, ends the fastest.

A story of a man who’d say

“He who feeds you, controls you”

"We must choose either champagne for a few or safe drinking water for all”

~Thomas Ankara~

🪡Thread🧵

Thomas Sankara ruled Burkina Faso

from 1983-87. As President, he lowered his salary to only $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer. He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone.

Formerly Upper Volta, Sankara renamed his country Burkina Faso , not only as a departure from the nation's French colonial past but importantly a rebirth, as Burkina Faso meant “Land of the upright people”. He also composed the national anthem and designed the national flag all

by himself. He practiced very austere fiscal policies such as selling off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers. He reduced the salaries of all public servants,

including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets. Also sold off the president's official jet and attached flights with neighboring Presidents so to save the taxpayer on fuel.

He shunned Foreign Aid including from the Soviet Union,

kept his country far from IMF and World bank. Which was the foundation of his quote, “He who feeds you controls you”. Yet sankara still succeeded in making his country food sufficient. He took the excess wealth of the rich and redistributed to the poor.

Burkina Faso is a

landlocked sahel country and needed a lot of trees, Sankara did his part leading a national effort to plant one million trees as part of his green revolution.

He cut all ties with France and also refused to pay post colonial reparations to Paris.

Sankara became the biggest

threat France had ever faced to its neo-colonialist control of large regions of Africa, so they took action.

On October 15,1987, Sankara was assassinated by agents of imperialism in coup plot orchestrated by France and was led by his very close military associate and ally,

Blaise Campaore, who led the early military coup that instilled Sankara back in 1983.

Campaore prevented Sankara’s body from being exhumed for years after his death. At the end of campaore rule in 2014, late Sankara body was exhumed by 2015, and 13 bullets were pulled out of his

remains. it was found in an autopsy that the bullets were puzzled around his body.