Sangoulé Lamizana

Abubakar Sangoulé Lamizana (born January 31, 1916 in Dianra , † May 26, 2005 in Ouagadougou ) was a Burkinabe politician and general and from January 3, 1966 to November 25, 1980 second president of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso ). From February 8, 1974 to July 7, 1978 he also took over the office of Prime Minister.

Life

Lamizana came from a simple Muslim farming family. He attended the École regional in Ouahigouya and the school for African officers in Saint-Louis in Senegal . In 1936 he joined the French colonial army, later fought in Indochina and Algeria and achieved the rank of captain . After Obervolta gained independence in 1960, the experienced military was entrusted with rebuilding the national armed forces and in 1967 was appointed Brigadier General.

Maurice Yaméogo , who had turned Upper Volta into a corrupt and impoverished one-party country under the Union Démocratique Voltaique (UDV) since independence , had to surrender his power to the popular Lamizana, who was proposed by the demonstrators, after mass demonstrations and a general strike in 1966 . General Lamizana presided over a provisional military government for four years , until a new constitution was drafted in 1970, which provided that a civilian elected government would be established after another four years. The UDV achieved a large majority in the National Assembly in elections under the new constitution. But after a period of drought in the early 1970s, power struggles broke out within the government, in which Lamizana was finally able to prevail against his prime minister Gérard Kango Ouédraogo and additionally took over his post in 1974. Lamizana was practically endowed with the power of a dictator, but carried out further reforms. Lamizana was confirmed in office in 1978 with the support of the trade unions in democratic elections, but two years later he was ousted by Saye Zerbo in a bloodless military coup . In 1984 he had to answer before a people's tribunal in what has now been called Burkina Faso, but was acquitted.