Risen From The Ashes Of Sankara. (A Tribute To Captain Ibrahim Traoré) Poem by Emeka GOC

Risen From The Ashes of Sankara.
(A tribute to Captain Ibrahim Traoré)



He is easily referred as modern day Thomas Sankara
Spirit never tell a lie. what also is easily noticed is
While Thomas was a Christian, Captain Traore is a Muslim
What a big difference, a glaring and daring difference.


What is permanently hidden is both Thomas and Traore
Are bonafide SONS of the soil of Bokinafaso, sons of the soil of Africa
While Buhari betrayed Africa and the great Igbo nation at the UN
Calling Myanmar/ Burma his brothers and Igbos; the Dot at the centre
tells us, the deception of religion to some mediocre average African persons


In the same red‑dusted dawn of Burkina's plains,
where the Sahel wind carries both rumor and prayer,
both brilliant officers were chiseled out of the dust
Young bright captains walked with a storm in their chests
Ibrahim Traoré, forged in the furnace of a restless era
following the routine crafted with blood of Thomas


Both officers discovered the pain of the Burkinabe's
not of their foreign religions or foreign gods
He was not born into quiet times, but rancour of religiosity
The land trembled with the weight of unkept promises,
villages hushed whispered of shadows that came at night,
and mothers stitched hope into the hems of their children's clothes.


Traoré listened, Traoré planned, Traoré acted
Not as a soldier alone, but as a son of the same soil
ears tuned to the cracked earth, eave dropping the wired conspiracies
eyes sharpened, focused but piercing on the ache of his people
who mourned the betrayal of the Moses, waiting, longing when Joshua will come
to lead them to complete the journey to the land of the righteous


When the old order faltered like a lantern in harmattan winds,
he stepped forward, not with the arrogance of conquest,
but with the solemn stride of one who knows
that history does not choose its servants gently
After Ikemba, comes Ohamadike; same risen sun, this time has come to stay


They say the day he rose, Ouagadougou's air changed
as if the city inhaled for the first time in years.
Drums beat in the hearts of the young, and the elders murmured,
'Perhaps the ancestors have sent us a spine of iron.'
Perhaps, the seed sown with Sankara blood, has risen to bear fruits


Traoré spoke of sovereignty, the way griots speak of destiny
with a voice that carried the weight of centuries
and the trembling hope of tomorrow, the feared tomorrow
feared both bu Burkinabe's, but by hidden secret, smooth oppressors
marauding as experts, diplomatic expatriates and chameleonic diplomats


He walked among crowds not as a distant figure,
but as a flame passed hand to hand, igniting something long buried;
Something, making history, faith and believe have not given up
The belief that a nation could stand upright fearlessly and gidigbam again


Yet he knew, foundationally trained by a complete village, shown the path was thorned,
The Sahel is a place where promises are tested, where every sunrise demands courage,
and the blood sucking Gespence marauding every night asks for sacrifice
indoctrinated, manipulated and maneuvered people doing the beadings of the devil


Still he moved forward, a captain navigating storms of geopolitics,
winds of insurgency, and the heavy rain of expectation.
In the quiet hours, when even the city's stray dogs slept,
he stood beneath the vast African sky, a lone silhouette against
The constellations older than empires, older than the illusion


And perhaps he wondered not whether he could carry the nation,
but whether the nation could carry itself, the weight was massive
through the fire he was willing to walk into, rather bare footed
For leadership is not the crown of glory but the cloak of burden.
And Traoré wore it, with the fierce humility of a man
who knows that history watches closely, he is bigger than the flesh


So the story continues, written in the dust of the Sahel,
in the chants of the youth, in the guarded hope of the elders.
Captain Ibrahim Traoré, a figure standing at the crossroads of fate,
holding a nation in his steady hands, and whispering to the future:

A he Rises, We rise with him, even if the world doubts our dawn
Risen this time we shall never faulter again, the risen sun remain risen
once my mentor wrote, 'Hope was preserved for Africa'
This time, hope has been served as a desert on the freedom menu
The sun have risen, never to set again in Africa.