Moscow, May 10, 2025.
Vladimir Putin is hosting dozens of world leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
A display of Russian power amid Putin’s protracted war in Ukraine, the event featured what may have been the most extravagant Victory Day military parade of the post-Soviet era.
Among the 29 heads of state in attendance, one figure stole the show. Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso’s military leader.
Russian state media saturated its coverage with images of Traoré, whose speeches championed pan-Africanism, mental liberation, and similar themes.
The Africa responded fervently. Traoré’s videos dominated social media— X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp—everywhere.
His meeting with Putin catapulted his visibility. While weekly mentions of Traoré had surged from well under 100,000 to a peak of 650,000 by April 2025, those numbers have likely climbed higher this May.
This is Traoré: Africa’s youngest president and the new darling of its youth. Social media casts him as a near-messianic figure—a pan-African revolutionary, a humble soldier-leader, and an anti-colonial icon battling Western oppression.
His support spans the continent and its diaspora. The reports are fantastic: Traore has paid off $4.5 billion debt to make Burkina Faso debt-free, he is building a bullet train from Ouagadougou to Bamako, he is building a “Pan-African Liberation Army” to expel all French influence from West Africa, he has introduced a national cryptocurrency to replace the CFA franc, he has eliminated poverty and food insecurity, and so on.
This is Africa’s newfound hero.
I have some experience with African heroes. I dissect their paths to understand their acclaim. People say: show me your hero, and I’ll show who you are. You can learn a lot about Africa’s aspirations and struggles by who Africans idolise.
In 2022, I wrote an article called How to Wreck a Nation in a Few Steps, tracing Robert Mugabe’s descent from liberation hero to architect of Zimbabwe’s ruin.
This trajectory is tragically familiar: figures like Gaddafi, Mengistu, Nkrumah, and Barre ascend as liberators, bask in revolutionary rhetoric, then spiral into authoritarianism and economic collapse.
But this marks my first real-time analysis of a rising African hero. Observing Traoré’s mythmaking is quite amusing.
My issue with Traoré’s mystique is that it rests more on symbolism than substance.
Like Museveni in the 1980s, his youth and military defiance stir hope across a continent desperate for change.
But beneath the pan-Africanist slogans lies a record of underwhelming performance.
Since seizing power, Traoré has inaugurated a cement plant producing 2,000 tonnes a day, reopened the iconic Faso Fani textile mill, launched two cotton processing plants, initiated 1,000 social housing units for displaced people, approved the country’s first gold refinery, commissioned two mid-sized solar plants, and continued construction of a new airport. All real. All useful. But all quite routine.
The bar for African heroism remains dishearteningly low.
Reality paints a starker picture. Burkina Faso’s security crisis has intensified: conflict-related deaths more than doubled to over 7,200 in the past year, 50 percent of the country lies beyond government control, and 2.1 million people are displaced.
Economic growth, averaging 5.4 percent annually in the decade preceding 2022, slowed to 3.6 percent under Traoré’s tenure. For all his bold rhetoric, progress has remained elusive.
So, how do we explain Traore’s popularity in Africa?
First, symbolism. Expelling French forces, embracing Russia, and speaking the language of sovereignty resonate powerfully with Africans. Yet these gestures obscure grim realities: Russian mercenaries now operate where French troops once did, and sovereignty rings hollow when over 50 percent of the territory is lawless.
Secondly, Russian amplification. Someone is behind the thousands of fictional posts about Traore. There is good evidence that we are back to the old KGB playbook in Africa that ensnared the likes of Toure, Nkrumah, and Keita. This will not end well either for Traore or for the Burkinabes. Third, African gullibility. When I shared a BBC Swahili article debunking Traoré-related misinformation, a critic dismissed it outright.
Running the claims through ChatGPT and Gemini confirmed their falsehoods but sharing this felt futile. Those convinced Burkina Faso erased $4.5 billion debt overnight and other fantasies surely lack the ability to discern fact from fiction.
Let me be clear: I’d celebrate Traoré as a hero if he delivered on the myths. Every fabricated post about him reveals what people truly aspire to. Why not simply do those things? Why peddle fiction instead of pursuing transformation?
The tragedy of African hero-worship is its fixation on image over substance. I’d rather not be a hero and lift my people from poverty, build enduring institutions, safeguard freedoms, and create opportunities for every African child. I’d choose the quiet, gruelling work of real progress—work that may never trend on Twitter but will echo through generations.
Traoré’s ascent reflects people’s hunger for dignity and agency. But until Africans choose to focus on substance rather than symbolism, the cycle of disillusionment will continue. Heroes are not forged in viral moments or military parades.
They are built in classrooms, hospitals, and thriving farms and factories.
