It is almost a quarter of a century since Thomas Sankara disappeared. In the pantheon of the brave sons of Africa assassinated by the former colonists and their African accomplices, he joins people like Lumumba, Um Nyobé, Félix Moumié, Osendé Afana, Ben Barka, Outel Bono and Pierre Mulele. But today, now that Africa needs the Sankarist spirit of action more than ever, Guy-Marius Sanga wishes more people looked to Sankara as a role model

For the past three decades, neoliberalism has insisted that ‘there is no alternative’ to semi-colonialism and the diktats of the IMF and World Bank. But, writes Senegal’s Guy Marius Sagna, our people ‘have enough common sense to understand that things have to change’.