• Three of the four are in West Africa
• The latest of them being 41-year-old Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba of Burkina Faso
Despite most leaders across the continent being in their late fifties or well past their sixties, there is a new crop of young African leaders who are within their early forties.
All these leaders were produced in the last three years, three in West Africa and one in Central Africa.
Incidentally, all of them have stark similarities in their personalities and the manner through which they came into office – trained and serving soldiers, taking over via a coup d’etat.
They are:
Colonel Assimi GoïtaGoita of Mali
General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno of Chad.
Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea
Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba of Burkina Faso
GhanaWeb profiles three of them, specifically those in West Africa as leaders of the regional bloc, ECOWAS, readies to meet over the January 24 coup that toppled the government of Burkina Faso president Christian Roch Marc Kabore.
TWI NEWS
Meet 39-year-old Col Assimi Goïta of Mali
He rose to prominence on August 18, 2020, when he announced the arrest of then-president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, IBK.
He was the leader of the now-disbanded National Committee for the Salvation of the People, CNSP – a junta of disgruntled army officers who promised to return the country to civilian rule as soon as possible.
In the transitional government, Goïta – a special forces commander served as vice-president, with direct responsibility for defence and security.
He eventually unilaterally removed transition president Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane for lack of consultation and installed himself president, a move the Constitutional Court backed.
His second coup has however attracted suspensions from regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union.
Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea
Tall and stout Doumbouya, a French-trained soldier had been handed leadership of the Special Presidential Guard of ousted President Alpha Conde.
But on September 25, 2021, when it emerged that a coup was underway in Conakry, the junta that emerged had the strong Conde-ally as its leader.
He has since been sworn into office as head of the transitional authority as consultations continue on how to return the country to constitutional rule amid suspension from ECOWAS and the African Union and sanctions from the former.
Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba of Burkina Faso
Until his 'rise' to the position of a coup leader, Damiba's last held post as a Lieutenant Colonel of the army was head of security for the capital, Ouagadougou (the country's third security region).
He had only been handed that post in December 2021 by outgone President Kabore in a move analysts said was to retain the support of the military at the time.
From Ouagadougou security chief, Damiba was announced on Monday evening as leader of the junta known as "Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration, or MPSR."
He is yet to be heard publicly despite being seated in the TV studios where the coup was announced. His voice on the fight against terrorism is, however, loud via a book he authored last year.
