Sub-Saharan Africa is home to many of the world’s longest-ruling heads of state. Pro-democracy advocates have at times successfully stopped presidents from extending their mandates, but the authorita…

Former Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore’s sentence of life imprisonment by an Ouagadougou military court for complicity in the murder of his predecessor, Thomas Sankara, marks an important victory for the rule of law in the country and the region as a whole. In exile in the Ivory Coast since his ouster from power following a popular uprising in 2014, Compaore was tried in absentia. Erstwhile Presidential Security Chief Hyacinthe Kafando, currently at large and also tried in absentia, similarly received a life sentence.

The trial against Burkina Faso’s exiled former leader for a decades-old assassination case could signal progress on accountability at a time of coups and upheaval regionwide.

After President Roch Kabore of Burkina Faso was overthrown in a military coup, both the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) condemned what they have insisted is an “attempted coup” and reminded the Burkinabe military of its constitutional role of defending and upholding the constitution.

Before the coronavirus arrived, Burkina faced growing fighting among rival jihadi terrorists that the share goal of the destruction of the state, rival political and ethnic militias, political groups associated with the business community, remnants of the networks of former dictator Blaise Compaore, deposed in 2014, and the state security services.