Blaise Compaoré (left).

Murdered his best friend/brother who he'd grown up with, Thomas Sankara (right). If you ask some people from Francophone African countries, they'll tell you that Blaise Compaoré was "adopted" by Sankara's parents. The two grew up together from a young age and considered brothers as well as colleagues in the military.

In 1983 Sankara seized power through a coup with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the former French colonial power in Upper Volta with Compaoré by his side. After the coup, he renamed the country Burkina Faso, meaning land of the upright/righteous man. In the 4 years he was in power, Sankara

His foreign policies were centered on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

Sankara's domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nationwide literacy campaign, and promoting public health. He focused the state’s resources on the marginalized majority in the countryside.

When most African countries depended on imported food and external assistance for development, Sankara championed local production and the consumption of locally-made goods. He firmly believed that it was possible for the Burkinabè, with hard work and collective social mobilization, to solve their problems: chiefly scarce food and drinking water.

So naturally, Thomas Sankara had to die. He wasn't the puppet ruler France could assert her neocolonialsim on. FYI a huge part of France's GDP comes from Francophone African countries, particularly through its control over the CFA currency and banking in these countries.

It's said that many people refused to support France in their coup, but in exchange for 27 years in power and French backing, Blaise Compaoré agreed to help the French overthrow Thomas Sankara.

When his officials tried to warn him about this, Sankara refused to believe that his brother and ally could be a part of such a plot against him.

On 15 October 1987, Sankara along with his officials were gunned down by an armed group led by Compaoré. His body was dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave. A public statement was issued that Sankara had died of natural causes. But the people didn't believe the story and for months many thought that Sankara had been jailed and would be eventually realised.

Blaise Compaoré immediately reversed the nationalizations, overturned nearly all of Sankara’s policies, rejoined the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to bring in “desperately needed” funds to restore the “shattered” economy.

In 2014, after 27 years in power and another attempt to change the constitution to allow him to run for office for yet another term, the citizens of Burkina Faso led an uprising. They tourched and destroyed government building and called for Compaoré's resignation. He had to be rescused by the French and fled to Ivory Coast.

(2014 revolution)

A week before his murder, Thomas Sankara declared, “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”

The types of leaders Africa needs - the benevolent “dictator”. If they all stood as one, necolonialism would be dead and the continent would thrive. Damn our useless leaders and traitorous likes of Blaise Compaoré.