Burkina Faso: Embattled Kabore fights on many fronts

Burkina Faso: Embattled Kabore fights on many fronts

By Akpo Ometan

President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore remains embattled and is fighting on many fronts, The Difference reports.

The latest indication of this emerged Sunday when there were reports of gunfire in barracks in the country. While administration officials say the situation is under control, the fact that it is coming on the heels of protests over the government’s inability to more aggressively tame the Islamist onslaught in the country is most instructive.

Kabore had won a second term vote in November 2020, in a poll where about a tenth of the registered voting population could not participate because it was too risky to deploy materials to their areas on account of the Islamist threat.

The land-locked West African nation is also enmeshed in the continuing trial of former President Blaise Compraore and other collaborators over the murder of former populist military leader, Thomas Sankara.

Kabore, who had first won election as President in 2015, had sacked his Prime Minister in December even as the security crisis in the country esalated.

The Defence Ministry has however ruled out any insinuations that the current barracks unrest is a coup de’tat.