AN OPEN LETTER TO THOMAS SANKARA
This open letter to
late Captain Thomas Sankara was originally published on page 4 of the Sunday
Standard Newspaper, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria on May 15, 1988 by M. O.
Ollorwi. Enjoy the article.
Could you remember
offhand the very night I told you to be careful in your selection of enemies?
Though I know a man cannot be careful in his choice of enemies, especially on a
planet and in a continent where everything is black, bleak and stone dark. I still
feel you should try. Now, you are no more. My eyes cannot see you as my
Sankara, a young, energetic and brave Africanist whose attempt to galvanize his
people and promote African cultures and values attracted more foes than
friends. Somehow, I feel that your spirit and blood (your stand on Africa for
Africans) like that of late brave African heroes (Patrick Lumumba, Dr. Nkwame
Nkrumah, General Murtala Mohammed, Comrade Samora Michel, etc.) is beckoning me
and true-Africa sons and daughters just because of the very way we love you.
I was much struck with
the simplicity of your life-style and sweetness of your manners both in private
and public life. Is this a breeding ground for fatal jealousy and terminal
hatred, a bleeding continent? In all, you never knew how much and how hard I
missed you because you never recognized how much and how well I love you. Now,
I keep buying newspapers and magazines to read about you, and to know how the
world feels about your untimely transition. It was only yesterday’s dawn that I
saw a man flayed and you can hardly believe how much it altered his appearance
for the worse. He assassinated you for materialism; leaving me only watching
you on televisions and reading about you in newspapers. Now, I fill all the
nooks and crannies of my house with your fascinating and inspiring pictures. I
adore you, son and blood of Africa.
I know you have
encountered a hard, rough life. Your
country was listed among the ten poorest in the world. You love your people
more than your own life, even in death. You expressed your efforts to galvanize
them; to awaken in them the spirit of self-reliance. But, that wasn’t
appreciated, was it? What do you say? We all have red blood in our vein? But, why
do we hate good people?
I know you went into
the shoes when you perceived your land enslaving itself. What was wrong with
that? You lived a poor and contented life and proved a stubborn
kind of a person to your pals. This convinced me offhand that you were at your
peak, only soon to descend into oblivion. Something good in a man seated in the
mangrove mud must be drown by the ocean of wicked guns booming across the
continent of death propel by the venom of “gentle” breeze. Were you then in the
ocean swimming your life away trying to Africanize?
I forgot to tell you. But,
I thought you know. When the wide currents of European Oceans meet with the deadly
waves of Arab marines they became too strong a force for the silent Africa to
contain. My Sankara, were you in-between these two wall and the blue sea
swimming into extinction, while Africa sleeps on?
Things are going from
bad to worse, not only for your country but for the whole of Africa. Even the
giant of Africa that should be mature and stand shoulder high is now learning
to creep. The ship of Africa is unmanned. All the heads are rotten and
smelling. Why did you embark on this endless journeying without a word? How is
the other side of life, my Sankara? If the needful are prayers, supplications,
libations or sacrifices, offer them on our behalf and stand in the gap for us. Questions
are not necessary. Your training and experience on earth guaranteed your
capability. Intercede for us, my Sankara. Let the gods forgive our insanity,
and let our ancestors pardon our violence and smile on us again. This is not
too much a request to make of you, my Sankara.
Just because you are
Thomas Sankara, that is why I love and adore you. You possess the courageous
and startling qualities of an African leader. A one in a million! The guns
helped to build you up; to make you a super-black-leader, and you have to
follow that route according to the scriptures of the gun.
Now, to you Death!
Death! Oh, Death! How wicked are you to snatch life out of my Sankara? Why did
you snatch him from me at the time I needed him most? Still in my mind, fresh
is how you snatched life out of Murtala Mohammed, Patrick Lumumba, Comrade Samora
Michel, etc. Oh! What Death! What more can I say, write, or do about you?
Lest I forget, it was
just this morning I woke up from bed to see four Burkinabes at the corridor of
my house. When I confronted them with questions as to why they were standing
there so early, I was made to understand that they had come to negotiate for the
purchase of my crude oil. But, Sankara, I was not only afraid to sell my crude
oil to your country on credit but was mindful of the fact that my crude oil,
the oil of blacks would eventually end up in the hands of our enemy – Botha and
his associates.
I hope you would not be
embarrassed by mere mention of that? You know if you were still alive and
captaining the Ship of the Burkinabes, my response would have been positive. I won’t
have had a second thought even though your country has no refinery. This is
because I trust you.
A friend of your –
because I know you didn’t count him your enemy – arrived Nigeria recently on
what is called “State Visit” and you would hardly believe the way and manner
with which he was received. Only a handful of Nigerians went out to welcome him
with folded arms and closed hearts, knowing quite well that he is a green snake
under green grass.
Captain Thomas Sankara,
I love you more than ever now. This is true because I took you for granted when
you were alive. Your name and popularity will never be erased from the sand of
African history. And your blood will ever remain fresh to ask for justice not
for yourself but for the “poverty ravaged Burkinabes whose dreams of hope
renewal stands truncated”.
But, O God, I miss him
bad. I miss my Sankara. What a strange thing is life and man in Africa? Are we
ungovernable even with good leaders? Why African lights are always put off at
dawn when the people are very hopeful?
Come home, my Sankara,
my legs are being uprooted from the ground. My head aches. My heart is burning
rapidly. My breasts can no longer support my children. There is hunger in the
land. There is suffering everywhere. Infectious diseases and poverty are
decimating my people. Where is holy water? Is the anointing oil better,
instead? What happen to the precious and delicious breasts of Africa? Or, the
fresh palm wine from African swamplands?
Which do I go for now to facilitate our cultural revival and value
reorientation and save Africa? Can any
mortal present himself at the door of the world where you now reside? Won’t the
doors be shut in the face? The authority to knock down the shutters is only
with the ancestors? But, are African ancestors there at all? Are our gods dead
or only silent? Who destroyed our shrines and polluted our altars? God! Oh,
God!!
It has happened, death
being most inevitable. So let it be with Captain Thomas Sankara, the noble
leader.
May your family and all
your fans do kindly accept my profound sympathy which is all I can offer now.
It is me, an African, a
friend of yours who now is a cool guy.
M. O. Ollorwi
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