2022 — Damiba's Coup in Burkina Faso

On January 24, 2022, soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba seized power in Burkina Faso, detaining President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. The junta dissolved the government, suspended the constitution, and closed the borders. Crowds celebrated in Ouagadougou, even as ECOWAS and the African Union condemned the takeover.

The soldiers were driven by fury at the failure to stop a jihadist insurgency that had killed thousands and displaced over a million people. That anger won Damiba the street, but not stability. He lasted only eight months before being overthrown himself, the coup's promise swallowed by the same crisis that had justified it.