Instead of a bust, a life-sized carving, a portrait, or a decent tomb with a headstone and his epitaph, Thomas Sankara’s remains are placed beneath dirt and unkempt surroundings overgrown by weeds. Not that he would have cared

Like Nkrumah of Ghana and Nyerere of Tanzania, Sankara sought to restore dignity and honour to his country and to imbue the youth with the ideals of pan-African solidarity, dignity and honour

Twenty-six years after the death of Sankara, it remains true that the essence of struggle is to mobilise people to believe in transforming their lives; that they have the capacity to dare to invent the future through collective struggle, rather than belief in an awaited messiah to lead them.

Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso, was assassinated 26 years ago. His original ideas for his country prefigured the alternative world movement and current approaches to change in Africa and South America

Written on the ninth anniversary of Sankara’s assassination, insight into the personality and political motivations of Sankara reveal not only a workaholic but a sensitive individual who sided with the poor in Burkinabé society