A world scale campaign is gathering momentum to free Kemi Seba, the Burkinabe arrested and detained since 21 December 2019 along with one other person in Ouagadou, Burkina Faso. Seba, according to the campaigners, was arrested after addressing a meeting of nearly 1000 Burkinabe youths in what is tagged a “revolutionary fight against the forces of French neo-colonisation in Africa”. The petition which is being signed online is to the Government of Burkina Faso.
Africa World Community which is leading the campaign of signatures is calling on President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré of Burkina Faso to take immediate action in securing the release of Kemi Seba from detention. Beyond that, they also want the president and all Francophone African states with currencies connected to the Euro to stand with the people of Africa and relinquish their ties to French neo-colonialism.
The campaigners are saying that Kemi Seba’s condemnation of elites in Africa for serving French interest at the expense of their people angered the members of the country’s ruling party, Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (MPP) who, allegedly used the pretext of an attempted attack on the home of another local activist to then arrest and detain Seba and his accomplice by name Djehuty supposedly in order to protect them from further attack. While Djehuty has been released December 22nd, Seba has remained in prison.
Seba is said to have received worldwide acclaim and support for raising awareness in Africa, using UrPanaf, a popular platform. What the campaigners call one of the alarming results of the pattern of “economic relationship” between 14 Francophone Africans nations is that they collectively deposit over $500 billion into the French Central Bank annually. By highlighting such issues, Seba and his followers are held for sparking a growing groundswell of grassroots support all over French Speaking Africa, from Burkina Fasso to Mali, Senegal, Benin, Congo, Rwanda & Ivory Coast. Not only that, his movement is believed to have begun to impact the English speaking world as Kemi Seba arrived back in Burkina Faso hot on the heels of his very first English speaking meeting in London. French president, Emmanuel Macron’s recent warning to the governments of Africa is being interpreted by the campaigners as no coincidence.
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Mr. Macron with his Cote d’Ivoire counterpart, Alassane Quattara on Dec 21st, 2019
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West African leaders who adopted Eco in June 2019. The ones from Francophone countries are under pressure now from below
Mr. Macron has been quoted as saying “I see opposition movements, groups that denounce the French presence as a neo-colonial imperialist presence” and he is angry that such anti-French feelings are not being condemned.
The statement followed Macron’s state visit to Ivory Coast, during which he signed agreements designed to absorb the CFA Franc into the newly formed West African currency – Eco – even when the new currency would remain tied to the French Euro.
What the campaigners are even angrier about is that the detention of Kemi Seba coincided with Mr. Macron’s state visit to Ivory Coast last weekend. In their view, the detention had been conveniently timed to sooth what they call the French coloniser and “ensure the strongest voice in the region on the CFA Franc could not be heard during the signing of agreements between French Elites and African puppets”
They are also taking note that the arrest coincided with what would have been the 70th birthday of Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso who refused to be tool of French neo-colonialism, saying that “The fight of this great ancestor is the fight of Brother Kemi Seba and all Africans of revolutionary conscience who support him”.