Captain President Ibrahim Traore Response to Sheikh Gumi:
Burkina Faso is a secular state and will remain a secular state, where the national constitution sits above all religious codes and doctrines.
The Sharia law will never be implemented as the legal system in Burkina Faso.
Over the past week since we abolished the implementation of the Sharia law legibility in Burkina faso, our media outlets have informed us about the attack from some Muslim leaders which we deem to not leave untouched.
To those sitting across our borders, Clerics and armchair commentators who attempt to lecture Burkina Faso on governance, faith, and maturity: hear this clearly.
You say I am ‘too young’ to decide the legal destiny of my country. But leadership and wisdom are not measured by the length of one’s beard or the number of years spent harboring unearned privileges.
Youth in Burkina Faso is not a handicap; it is the driving force of our revolution, our independence, and our survival.
Burkina Faso is a sovereign republic. We do not take directives from foreign preachers, self-appointed religious judges, or extremist sponsors operating outside our borders.
For years, external forces have attempted to export doctrines designed not to build nations, but to divide them. They send our youth abroad to study theoretical codes that create no factories, cultivate no fields, and construct no hospitals.
Then, these young men return to preach division, telling us that our brothers of Catholic, Protestant, or traditional faiths are enemies in their own homeland.
That era is over. Burkina Faso will never accept Sharia law as state law. We are, and will remain, a secular nation where every citizen—Muslim, Christian, or traditionalist—stands equal before the civil law of the Republic.
Our ancestors built this land on solidarity, not sectarian hatred. A state that privileges one religious legal system over another invites permanent civil conflict. Our civic laws protect the freedom of worship for everyone equally, ensuring no group can impose its dogma on others.
We do not need thousands of young men trained overseas solely to argue over religious jurisprudence while our infrastructure decays.
Burkina Faso needs engineers, agronomists, military officers, mechanics, and doctors. Under our state vision, public resources will support vocational and technical training that guarantees self-reliance and economic sovereignty.
Terrorist groups across the Sahel exploit religious rhetoric to justify the slaughter of innocent peasants and the destruction of our villages. By drawing an ironclad boundary between state governance and religious practice, we destroy the political pretext that armed insurgents use to recruit and subvert our population.
If defending our territorial integrity, uniting our multi-faith population, and empowering our youth with real economic tools makes me ‘too young’ in the eyes of foreign clerics, then let history record that Burkina Faso was saved by the young.
We respect faith, but we bow only to the sovereignty of the Burkinabè state and the well-being of our country
Uchesucces Ekezie @highlight