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By: Robert Patrick Fati Gakwerere
In Burkina Faso, was a coup attempt foiled? This is what the government said this Wednesday evening, September 27, in a press release read on national television. This Thursday, the military prosecutor’s office said it had opened “a detailed investigation on the basis of credible reports of a plot against state security.” As a result, four officers were arrested and two are actively sought.
We know a little more about the identity of these arrested officers. There are two figures from the National Gendarmerie. Lieutenant-Colonel Cheick Hamza Ouattara, who commands the Special Gendarmerie Legion, as well as Captain Christophe Maïga, second in command of the Special Intervention Unit of the same gendarmerie, the equivalent of the GIGN in France. A unit that is on the front line in the fight against terrorism.
Among the officers arrested are also Abdoul Aziz Aouoba, the commander of the Burkinabè Special Forces and Boubacar Keita, director general of the Higher Institute of Civil Protection Studies. “They are being heard for the moment,” says a security source. The two officers on the run are, according to our information, former members of the national intelligence agency.
One of them is Commander Sekou Ouedraogo, the former deputy director general of the National Intelligence agency. The man was relieved of his duties by Captain Ibrahim Traoré on September 13. The military prosecutor’s office invites anyone likely to provide information to come and testify, in view of the recurrence of “attempts and other allegations of destabilization”.
