Some of you might ask: Who is Ibrahim Traore? In case you didn’t know , he is the president of the transitional government of Burkina Faso since 2022.
This young man aged 37 was born on March 14, 1988, seven years after the death of Bob Marley.
A charismatic 37-year-old, Burkina Faso's military ruler Captain Ibrahim Traoré has skilfully built the persona of a pan-Africanist leader determined to free his nation from what he regards as the clutches of Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.
His message has resonated across Africa and beyond, with his admirers seeing him as following in the footsteps of African heroes like Burkina Faso's very own Thomas Sankara - a Marxist revolutionary who is sometimes referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara" and Bob Marley’s chant of uniting Africans.
His cry is the same as that found in Bob Marley’s 1979 song which came out long before Traore was born:
What Bob Marley saw then is what Traore sees now. Remember Bob Marley in 1979 sang:
Africa unite
'Cause we're moving right out of Babylon
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And we're going to our Father's land, yeah
How good and how pleasant it would be
Before God and man, yeah
To see the unification of all Africans, yeah
As it's been said already, let it be done, yeah
We are the children of the Rastaman
We are the children of the Iyaman
So, Africa unite
'Cause the children wanna come home (Africa unite), yeah, yeah
Africa unite
Ibrahim Traore’s message of uniting Africans has resonated across Africa and beyond. .
Traoré's impact is huge. I have even heard African politicians and authors in countries like Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe say: 'This is it. He is the man." One commentator had this to say: "His messages reflect the age we are living in, when many Africans are questioning the relationship with the West, and why there is still so much poverty in such a resource-rich continent." .
"He is now arguably Africa's most popular, if not favourite, president," another commentator said.
His message has resonated across Africa and beyond just like Bob Marley’s Africa Unite anthem. In the song Africa Unite by Bob Marley, the line “How good and how pleasant it would be before God and man, to see the unification of all Africans” simply explains the true goal of Marley’s religious beliefs in Rastafarianism. The goal of the rasta man is to escape the pressure of Babylon, Babylon representing all of the oppressive organisations.
It was not just the great powers such as Great Britain and Spain who participated in these expansions of power.
Every country, from Sweden to Portugal, shared the same imperialistic mindset. What came out of this period of greed was something that would impact the world forever. Even right now, Russia is fighting in Ukraine out of greed to take over that land. Israel is in Gaza for the same reason. Human greed!,
During the Atlantic slave trade. millions of Africans were taken away from their homeland and forced into slavery and had to work for the white man.
These slaves were sent to the Americas to work on farms and to pick crops.
To others, it is a distant happening because they would consider it as something ancient that occurred under a different set of cultural norms and with a different generation of individuals, while others think of colonisation and slave trade as one of the worst injustices experienced by humanity.
Whether colonisation is acknowledged or not, there is no doubt that it has played, and continues to play, a huge part in the state in which society is in today. Although the physical manifestations of colonisation, like the loss of natural, human dignity still have an impact on today’s world, Bob Marley, in his Africa Unite song must have been inspired by Kwame Nkrumah’s dream for Africa.
Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) was a Ghanaian politician, leader of the Ghanaian independence movement, and the country’s first president after independence in 1957. He was a key figure in Pan-Africanism and played a major role in promoting African unity. Since then, many African leaders have tried but failed. We will see how far Traore goes in fulfilling Nkrumah’s or Bob Marley’s dream.
Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, argues for the political and economic unity of the entire African continent, considering it essential for prosperity, stability, and self-determination in the face of external influences and neo-colonialism.
Ibrahim Traore shares the same argument and he seems determined to carry out his vision.
Everyone agrees that Bob Marley provided the world with incredible, powerful and evocative music that spanned nearly two decades. This music remains timeless and universal, a sound that has lasted through many generations. The Wailers and Bob Marley have built a place for themselves in the very fabric of our lives.
My 19-year-old niece, who was born long after Marley’s death, often plays Africa Unite over and over, and each time I tell her that I met Bob Marley and that this song was written long before she was born, she gasps in disbelief.
She also questions me on why African countries have not united like the United States of America? I tell her that African countries have not united into a single nation due to a complex mix of historical legacies, vast diversity, economic disparities, and political challenges.
The idea of a "United States of Africa" is generally seen as unattainable as a single country, but efforts towards regional integration are ongoing as shown by Traore.. European powers drew arbitrary borders during the late 19th-century "Scramble for Africa" with little regard for existing ethnic, linguistic, or cultural communities. This forced different groups to co-exist within single states, often leading to internal tensions and conflicts that persist today.
After achieving independence, many newly formed nations were reluctant to cede their hard-won sovereignty to a larger continental government They just accepted the boundaries and divisions prescribed for them by the white man.. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the African Union (AU), was founded on the principle of cooperation between sovereign states, not relinquishing sovereignty.
With young presidents like Traore of Burkina Faso and Duma Gideon Boko of Botswana coming to the fore, Bob Marley’s vision of a United Africa, we hope, will soon be realised.
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