The coffin of Alino Faso touched down this week on Burkinabé soil, but anyone who thought that would silence him misunderstood the nature of dissent. Sometimes a voice grows louder after death, echoing in the alleys and market stalls where it once raged against corruption and tyranny. Faso, an activist forced into exile before his death abroad, has returned home in the most symbolic of ways: carried by mourners who see him less as a body and more as a banner.
Burkina Faso has lived under the grip of successive military juntas in recent years, each promising salvation from jihadist violence, poverty, and political chaos. Yet promises have a short shelf life, and frustration has fermented into protest. Alino Faso was one of those rare citizens who refused to stay quiet. He named names, accused leaders of betrayal, and questioned the narrative that military power was the nation’s cure. For that, he earned not only admirers but enemies powerful enough to push him out of his homeland.
In exile, he became both a rallying point and a target. His words, published on social media and in diaspora forums, cut across borders, stirring conversations not just in Ouagadougou but in Bamako, Niamey, and beyond. For regimes allergic to criticism, his activism was a thorn. For young Africans disillusioned with the continent’s recycling of military saviors, he was a reminder that speaking truth to power is still possible.
Now his body is back in Burkina Faso, and the symbolism is impossible to ignore. Funerals in Africa are rarely private matters when politics is involved. They are processions of memory, and often, of defiance. Thousands are expected to pay their respects, not only to a man but to an idea: that dignity should not be buried, even when dissenters are.
The junta may hope that death draws a line under his activism, but history suggests the opposite. Across the continent, the graves of activists have often sprouted movements. Thomas Sankara, assassinated in 1987, still looms large over Burkinabé politics, his image painted on walls and chanted in protests. Kenya’s Robert Ouko, Nigeria’s Ken Saro-Wiwa, South Africa’s Steve Biko—all silenced by power, yet still speaking decades later. Alino Faso now joins this solemn fraternity.
The return of his remains comes at a time when Burkina Faso is struggling with both internal insurgency and international isolation. Military rule has severed ties with some Western allies while pivoting toward alternative partners, but the promises of stability have not materialized. Villages remain vulnerable, families continue to flee, and youth unemployment keeps swelling. In such a climate, the memory of an activist who dared to hold leaders accountable is combustible material.
Observers say the junta will be watching the funeral carefully, wary of it morphing into a protest. Security presence is expected to be heavy, and speeches at graveside may be monitored or curtailed. Yet mourning is difficult to police. Every chant of his name, every raised fist, every tear shed in public is a reminder that authoritarianism cannot fully dictate how people remember their dead.
Alino Faso’s return also resonates regionally. West Africa has become a patchwork of juntas, from Mali to Niger to Burkina Faso itself, all of them insisting their military grip is a patriotic necessity. Critics like Faso puncture that narrative, showing instead the gaps, the failures, and the human cost. His burial will thus be watched not only in Ouagadougou but also in Bamako and Niamey, where similar discontent simmers.
For young Africans who have grown cynical about politics, Faso’s story is a double-edged one. It shows the risks of speaking out—exile, threats, and ultimately an early grave. But it also shows the enduring power of conviction, the kind that makes a government nervous even when the critic can no longer shout. The state controls the airwaves, but it cannot control memory.
To conclude, Alino Faso has come home. His coffin may be lowered into the earth, but his voice is rising. It rises in the chants of mourners, in the whispers of the discontented, in the scribbles of graffiti on city walls. He once warned that silence in the face of injustice is complicity. In death, he ensures that silence is broken, and perhaps that is the most powerful act of all.
