In Africa, the leadership bar is so low. The performance stakes for any incumbent African leader are spectacularly low. You don’t have to do much to be the hero. And more than any place on earth, you don’t have to scratch your head to succeed. All you need is resolve.

In Africa, the people are tired. Any leader who walks into town with a genuine interest in the people’s welfare and commitment to usher in tangible change will be welcomed with arms wide open. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And so walked into dusty Ouagadougou this 33 year-old, guitar-playing, jogging-enthusiast and handsome president in 1983. He spoke so simply that even the village folk in Yako, where he hailed from, understood every word he spoke. He did not throw around big words like GDP, and all its cousins. He told them they needed to grow their own food, not import food from France. “He who feeds you, controls you,” was his refrain. He told the men they needed to treat their wives right, and even went ahead to institute a day when men stayed at home to do the chores. He told his people it was ok to wear clothes made from their own cotton, and went ahead to demonstrate that. In a matter of weeks, two and a half million children were vaccinated. 10 million trees were planted. And then he cut back on the bloated civil service and reigned in the wanton waste of public resources, so much so that, even for a poor country such as his, roads and a railway line across the country were built – without foreign aid.

What is SO hard with that?

He did not stop there. He went on to change the name of the country from the France-baptized Upper Volta to Burkina-Faso meaning, “The land of upright men.” And God knows, he was an upright man. Even his young brother got fed half-baked beans when he finally got round to visiting State House. Not the 7-Course Gourmet meal he had anticipated. He also re-wrote the national anthem. The one whose earthly possessions (tallied at the end of his life) was a brick house, three guitars, four bikes, a fridge and a broken down freezer was to be seen spending entire mornings in the fields with the farmers, and jogging through the city streets in the evenings.

He spoke to the powers that be, that considered him a rebellious leader in a former colony. The pan-Africanist he was, he spoke out against apartheid, telling French President Jacques Chirac to his face (during his visit to Burkina Faso), that it was wrong for him to support the apartheid government and that he must be ready to bear the consequences of his actions. Old Chirac did not flinch. He looked on in disdain.

But this young man was unstoppable. His conviction was stronger than his need to please. He went to the club of old tired African men in Addis Ababa. By golly, he was a breath of fresh air – he raffled feathers! “How about we all refuse to pay our debts,” he chest-thumped. “If only I do it, I will not be here next year. I’ll be killed. But if we all repudiate these debt repayments that are holding the continent hostage, they cannot kill us all!” The tired men shuffled their feet. The atmosphere was uneasy. Some were amused. Most of them bemused. “This young man must be high on cotton seeds,” they surmised. From the days of Leopold Sedar Senghor, Julius Kambarage Nyerere and Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, no one had spoken with such conviction.

Well, true to his words, the young man never returned to the gizzers’ club house in Addis Ababa.

THOMAS NOEL ISIDORE SANKARA. He was assassinated 34 years ago today. Shall we see another like him?

May God deliver Africa from the continuing hemorrhage of its resources by marauding bands of suited robbers who have turned our leaders, content in their hedged palaces, into run-of-the-mill collaborators against their own people!