Burkina Faso PM, government resign over insecurity

Burkina Faso’s premier and government resigned Wednesday as protests mounted against officials’ inability to combat a wave of jihadist attacks that have killed thousands.

Burkina Faso, just like Nigeria, has been plagued by Jihadist attacks since 2015. Over 2,000 people have been killed and more than 1.4 million people displaced from their homes.

Groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have afflicted the landlocked Sahel nation since 2015.

AFP reports that President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who had already changed his military leadership over the security crisis, accepted Prime Minister Christophe Joseph Marie Dabire’s resignation, according to a presidential decree.

The resignation of a prime minister requires the resignation of the entire government, according to Burkina Faso law.

After his resignation, Dabire called on citizens to “support the president… and the new executive that will be put in place” in a post on his Facebook page.

“I remain convinced that it is through unity of action that we will be able to meet the challenges our country and our people are facing,” he said.

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However, the outgoing administration will be required to remain in a caretaker capacity until a new one is formed, government secretary-general Stephane Wenceslas Sanou said, reading out the decree on public television.

Kabore first appointed Dabire in early 2019 as part of a reshuffle coinciding with a rising wave of jihadist attacks in the impoverished country.

He was reappointed in January 2021, after the president was re-elected for his second and last term.

Dabire was previously Burkina Faso’s representative at the eight-nation West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and in the 1990s served as minister to former president Blaise Compaore, partly at a time when Kabore himself as premier.

Dabire’s portfolios were for health, followed by secondary and higher education, and then scientific research.

The premier’s resignation comes after the president last month stressed the need for a “stronger” cabinet on the eve of anti-government protests over the jihadist violence.