Why the West Is Obsessed with Africa

…and why Burkina Faso is at the center of it all

If Africa reclaims what’s rightfully hers, the global balance of power shifts. Permanently.

The West knows this. That’s why it’s obsessed, not with Africa’s people, but with its resources. From gold and cobalt to solar real estate and shipping corridors, Africa holds the raw materials of the 21st-century economy. And the more African nations like Burkina Faso reject the old model of extraction and control, the more uncomfortable Western powers become.

This isn’t just about Burkina Faso nationalizing a few mines. It’s about the potential collapse of a global system where the Global South produces and the Global North profits.

Let’s get a reality check with numbers…

Africa holds:

• 30% of the world’s mineral reserves
• 60% of global cobalt supply (mostly from the DRC)
• Over 40% of global gold reserves
• The largest reserves of platinum, chromium, and diamonds

In 2023 alone:

• Burkina Faso exported over 60,000 kg of gold, mostly to Switzerland and Canada.
• The Democratic Republic of Congo supplied over 70% of the world’s cobalt, much of it mined under dangerous, exploitative conditions.

While African nations sit atop immense value, the real profits flow outward, into the coffers of foreign mining firms, Western stock exchanges, and offshore tax havens. Countries like Burkina Faso get left with environmental destruction, low-paying jobs, and compromised sovereignty.

If the status quo breaks, if more African nations follow Burkina Faso’s lead here’s what’s at risk for the West:

• Access to over 60% of the world’s Cobalt (for EV batteries), Lithium (for grid storage), and Rare earth metals (for AI chips, military tech, solar panels).
• Cheap gold and untaxed mineral flows, often processed in Europe.
• Military and diplomatic leverage over African governments through aid, loans, and bases.
• Control over shipping, data cables, and green energy corridors running through the continent.

What’s happening in Ouagadougou today could rewrite the rules in Washington, Paris, and London tomorrow. That’s why the West isn’t just watching, it’s squirming.

If it’s all of Africa, then why is just Burkina Faso scaring the West? 

It’s not Burkina Faso, but its military President, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, that the West is scared of. Traoré has made the once-dismissed, forgotten outpost the center of a continental reckoning.

Captain Traore did many of the right things, which were not in accordance with the Western script and SOP. He rejected IMF loans, calling them “modern-day slavery,” expelled French troops, saying their presence worsened insecurity, demanded factories, not foreign-funded mosques, and prioritized agriculture, solar power, and manufacturing over extraction-for-export.

His model is simple: resource sovereignty, community ownership, and national dignity.

It’s spreading. Niger, Mali, Guinea, and others are taking notes. The Alliance of Sahel States is emerging as a bloc that no longer asks permission to act in its people’s interests.

The West doesn’t fear Traoré because he’s radical. They fear him because he’s right. And because others might follow.

This is not just about gold. Or oil. Or cobalt. It’s about control.

From the Berlin Conference to today’s “development partnerships,” the West’s obsession with Africa has never been about philanthropy. It’s been about economic extraction, strategic leverage, and resource dominance. And now, as the continent begins to resist, Burkina Faso has become ground zero in the next chapter of this fight.

As the global demand for critical minerals grows, the choices made by African countries like Burkina Faso will shape not only their futures but also the geopolitical landscape. The West’s response to these shifts will determine whether it can adapt to a world where former colonies demand equitable partnerships over exploitative arrangements.

Burkina Faso: The Rise of a Nation That Said No to the West

In a world shaped by quiet subjugation and subtle control, Burkina Faso is roaring back, loud, unapologetic, and uncompromising.

This small West African nation, once dismissed as a “failed state,” is flipping the imperial script with surgical precision. In under five years, it has expelled French troops, rejected IMF loans, nationalized foreign-owned mines, powered cities with solar energy, and rolled out its own line of electric vehicles.

How?

At the center of this transformation is 37-year-old Captain Ibrahim Traoré, Africa’s youngest head of state and arguably the West’s newest geopolitical headache. Once a dusty pawn in France’s post-colonial chessboard, Burkina Faso is today a defiant voice in global geopolitics. And it’s not just about one man, it’s about what he represents: a continent done with dependency.

And it’s not just about one man, it’s about what he represents: a continent done with dependency.

The man who makes the West squirm

Since taking power in September 2022, Traoré has reportedly survived at least 19 assassination attempts. The targets were real. The message was clear.

Why? Because he’s dangerous, to the status quo.

He is young, military-trained, and ideologically focused. He speaks not in diplomatic pleasantries, but in the language of sovereignty, dignity, and pride. Through social media and grassroots broadcasts, his words reach far beyond his borders, inspiring a new generation of African youth. He has no interest in being legitimized by Paris or Washington.

Instead, he’s forging new alliances, with Mali, Niger, Guinea, and Russia, under the Alliance of Sahel States, a regional bloc anchored in self-defense, resource control, and African-led governance.

The threat is so real that Traoré has publicly said: “They want me dead, not because I failed, but because I refused to kneel.”

From French Colony to IMF Laboratory

France colonized Burkina Faso, then Upper Volta, in 1896. It extracted gold, cotton, and labor, and left behind a hollowed state by 1960. But even after independence, France’s grip never loosened. It continued to dominate the economy through control of the CFA franc, foreign mining contracts, and military presence under the guise of “counterterrorism.”
For decades, Burkina Faso lived in a loop: coups, Western aid, IMF austerity, repeat. Structural adjustment programs slashed health and education spending while protecting elite interests. Meanwhile, French and Canadian companies extracted over 60,000 kilograms of gold annually by 2024, while most Burkinabè remained in poverty.

The Black President the West can’t control

When Traoré, a little-known military captain, ousted the French-aligned regime in September 2022, it wasn’t just a change of leadership; it was a rupture. Traoré didn’t just challenge the West rhetorically. He has done it operationally.

But Traoré didn’t stop at regime change. He launched a revolution, not with slogans, but with blueprints.

• He expelled French troops.
  He rejected IMF loans, calling them “modern-day slavery.”
  He told foreign donors to stop building mosques and start building factories.

As he bluntly put it in a widely circulated interview, “Don’t bring us aid. Bring us ownership. We’ll run the manufacturing facilities ourselves.”

The revolution was basic, but radical

Captain Ibrahim Traoré didn’t arrive with billion-dollar bailouts or corporate mega-deals.
He did the basics. Just the basics. But in a region sabotaged by centuries of extraction and dependency, doing the basics was revolutionary.

He focused on nation-building, community-building, and economic development. He prioritized education over military spending, science over religion, manufacturing over dependency, and agriculture over mining. He focused on food security, community empowerment through small businesses, and natural resources conservation through sustainable agriculture practices, mining with a plan, and self-sustenance through local production of goods. He beefed up government services to provide basic needs such as healthcare, education, and electricity. He ripped the governance of corruption and financial misappropriation.

• Education over war: In 2023, after cutting defense ties with France, Burkina Faso expanded investments in education. The government launched school meal programs, restored rural classrooms with solar power, and increased funding for universities and technical institutes by over 40%. The goal: produce engineers, not aid recipients.
• Science over religion: When Gulf donors offered to build 200 mosques, Traoré refused. “We don’t need more mosques. We need factories,” he said. In 2024 alone, more than 500 local technicians were trained in solar energy and electric vehicle manufacturing. New training centers in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso are preparing youth for careers in electric vehicle production, renewable energy, and light manufacturing.
  • Solar power and electricity: In 2021, only 19% of Burkina Faso had access to electricity. By 2025, solar plants like Zagtouli (33 MW), Kodeni (38 MW), and Zina (26.6 MW) added over 150 MW of clean energy capacity. Off-grid solar microgrids began powering rural health clinics, schools, and small businesses.
  • Homegrown EVs: In 2025, Burkina Faso launched the ITAOUA, a 100% solar-powered electric car designed and built locally. With a range of 330 km, it’s a symbol of national pride and proof that the country doesn’t need to import the future, it can build it.
• Agriculture over mining: Traoré didn’t abandon mining, but he demanded it work for the people. From 2023 to 2025, food production increased by 30%, driven by subsidies for seeds, solar irrigation, and rural cooperatives. Over 200,000 smallholders received access to off-grid storage and market access. New mining licenses now require community benefit clauses and environmental accountability.
• Governance: In just two years, over 900 government officials were investigated for corruption. A special audit unit was established to oversee public procurement and natural resource management. Government presence in rural areas increased by over 40%, restoring trust in basic public services like healthcare, water, and education.
• Gold and sovereignty: A national gold refinery, opened in 2024, now allows Burkina Faso to process its own mineral wealth for the first time. Traoré is also moving to nationalize foreign-run mines, ensuring profits stay within the country instead of being siphoned off.
• Healthcare: Under Traoré, the government launched solar-powered mobile clinics offering maternal care, HIV testing, and cancer screenings, especially in areas where health services were once only available through foreign NGOs.

Traoré’s genius wasn’t in declaring independence. It was in making it visible, through food on tables, light in homes, teachers in classrooms, and factories run by Burkinabè hands.

In a world where many leaders chase headlines and foreign handshakes, Traoré chose something rare: he governed, he turned sovereignty from an abstract concept into a lived experience.

And that, more than anything, is what shook the West: a leader who didn’t beg for recognition but built a system that couldn’t be ignored.

Contrast this with Pakistan, where the state has long been held hostage by a toxic mix of religious extremism, foreign debt, and military-first governance. Decades of IMF bailouts, military compromise, and external dependencies have left the nation politically unstable, economically shackled, and branded as an eternal beggar.

Wise Traoré saw that trap, and refused to walk into it. Instead, he turned down aid with strings. He demanded partnerships with ownership. And, he rebuilt his nation by starting where others wouldn’t, at the roots.

The voice the West can’t silence

Burkina Faso’s revolution isn’t just political. It’s cultural. It’s generational. It’s viral.

Across Africa and the Global South, Traoré is no longer just a president. He’s become a symbol of what’s possible when sovereignty is not for sale.

The age of silence is over. The Global South is speaking. And Ibrahim Traoré is the voice the West can’t shut down.