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The crowd awaits the arrival of Blaise Compaoré, former President of Burkina Faso, eight years after his forced exile in Cote d’Ivoire in 2014, outside Ouagadougou airport, July 7, 2022. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP
What might Blaise Compaoré be thinking on the Ivorian Presidency plane that took him back Thursday July 7 to his country Burkina Faso, of which he was in charge for twenty-seven years before being hunted down in 2014? Supporters of the former president flocked to Ouagadougou airport as if to make him forget the humiliation of his forced departure and subsequent exile. Everything was rushed. A roaring street drove him from that power in October 2014, which he tried to expand again before the French army exfiltrated him to Côte d’Ivoire, a country of which he took nationality to evade an extradition request.
According to his entourage, Mr Compaoré was to spend “a few days” in the Burkinabe capital before returning to Abidjan. Along with other former heads of state, he must attend a meeting on Friday in “the best interest of the nation,” according to the Burkinabe presidency. The mini-summit was organized by Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, leader of the coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in January, with the aim of responding to the urgent need to “speed up national reconciliation” in the face of jihadist attacks , which have devastated and destabilized the country since 2015.
Also read: Burkina Faso: Ex-President Blaise Compaoré arrived in Ouagadougou after eight years in exile
Considered the strongman of West Africa during his reign, the 71-year-old “handsome Blaise” is now debilitated, plagued by absences. He is the subject of a life sentence, which was handed down in April at the trial of the assassins of ex-President Thomas Sankara, his legendary predecessor. There is no doubt, however, that despite the Presidency’s press release assuring that this meeting “does not hamper the legal proceedings instituted against certain individuals” or the request by the Sankara family lawyers’ collective to “have him arrested”, Blaise Compaoré is said to go unmolested in stay in a secure villa in the Ouaga 2000 district near the Presidential Palace.
Critical moment for the ruling junta
His arrival had been preparing behind the scenes for several weeks. The case of the former president was discussed at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Heads of State Summit in Accra, Ghana on 3 July. “We pleaded that the issue of the return of exiles be addressed and that he can return to the country,” explains one of his relatives. They evoke in his circle the “crucial” role of former President Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, who had traveled to Abidjan a few weeks earlier to discuss the terms of his return.
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