The homophobia of Pan-African regimes

West Africa has experienced a series of significant geopolitical developments in recent years, with the potential to reshape both its political landscape and economic trajectory. These are, in many ways, years in which decades have passed. Longstanding regimes have collapsed, populations have expanded rapidly, and economic growth has, in aggregate terms, generally trended upwards across the region. Yet these positive developments have been accompanied by equally serious challenges. A persistent jihadist insurgency continues to destabilise the Sahel, military coups have undermined the post-90s move towards democratisation, and regional institutions such as ECOWAS have seen their legitimacy increasingly questioned, particularly in light of the emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States as a contender to the Pan-African aspiration of politically uniting the region.

An increased repression of LGBT+ communities

Among these developments, one particularly alarming trend, and the focus of this submission, concerns the resurgence of legislative and political repression targeting gender and sexual minorities. Recent developments in Burkina Faso and Mali illustrate the severity of this trend. In Burkina Faso, the military government under Captain Ibrahim Traoré introduced legislation imposing a maximum 5-year prison sentence for homosexuality. This was later unanimously passed by his transitional assembly, materially jeopardising the social acceptance and relative safety of a country where LGBT Burkinabés had previously lived without fear of imprisonment (The Guardian, 2025). This change followed a similar law announced by the military government of neighbouring Mali, which also banned same-sex relationships and introduced mandatory 2-7 year prison sentences for an entire community of people, supposedly in the name of defending ‘traditional and moral values’ (Kojoué, 2024).

These developments, while alarming, are not entirely surprising when situated within the broader political context. Both regimes have simultaneously overseen restrictions on political and civil liberties such as the right of public assembly, alongside crackdowns on journalists and dissidents (Hughes, 2025). However, these actions must not be divorced from the context of the ongoing deadly Sahel insurgency as well as the structural economic constraints associated with longstanding patterns of dependency – i.e. Françafrique. As I have outlined elsewhere, if extremism is to be understood as a germ, poverty is the condition that allows said germ to spread rapidly (Doucouré 2024), with said poverty being directly attributable to the persistence of uneven trade dependencies and extractive commerce rooted in colonialism. It is no coincidence that in two of the poorest and most economically exploited nations of our planet, we may observe serious political instability, the rise of military rule, and extremism. With that said, it would be analytically insufficient to attribute the rise in the persecution of gender and sexual minorities solely to military governance or neocolonial pressures. Indeed, the Republic of Senegal offers an intriguing and instructive mini-case study through which we may complicate the easy answers to questions to be asked of this trend. This is a country that, per Regional/Central bank data, attained for its citizens over 85% of the GDP per capita of both Burkina Faso and Mali, combined. Although, like many emerging economies, the material reality of this relatively strong economic performance is deeply uneven, with poverty very much remaining a significant issue in Senegal.

Concerning the rise in homophobic repression across West Africa, Senegal is a useful case study to consider here not primarily because of its economic position relative to Burkina Faso and Mali but, rather, because the country has generally been praised by geopolitical observers for having preserved a ‘democratic tradition’ (Center for Strategic and International Studies,2024) ; the transfer of power from civilian to civilian has persisted in spite of domestic and numerous regional constitutional crises (Yabi and Holman, 2024). The country has never experienced a single coup d’etat, a matter of significance given that the fact that Africa as a whole has experienced, until 2010, at least 169 coup attempts – with 51.5% ultimately being successful seizures of power (Powell and Thyne 2011, p. 255).

These democratic and constitutional credentials are to be celebrated… but in reality, this fact has historically been irrelevant to the rights of gender and sexual minorities in the country. After all, homosexuality has been banned since 1966 (Republic of Senegal, 1965, Art. 319). In the contemporary era, the Pan-Africanist government of the PASTEF movement has doubled the existing 5-year prison sentence outlined in the 1966 Penal Code, also taking the opportunity to announce new laws in March 2026 criminalising the ‘promotion’ and ‘financing’ of LGBT rights (Négoce, 2026). The civilian-led government of Senegal, voted into power with 54% of the popular vote just two years earlier, has legislated an even harsher punishment than those imposed by its military-rule neighbours in Mali and Burkina Faso. From this, we may conclude that the form of government is a matter of very little, if any, significance in the rise of legislative and political persecution targeting LGBT communities.

This raises a crucial analytical question : if both civilian and military regimes, each espousing a commitment to Pan-Africanism, are converging around similar forms of repression, what explains this trend ? While public opinion data from the past has indicated a comparatively low acceptance of homosexuality across sub-Saharan Africa (Pew Research Center, 2013), this should not be hastily interpreted as evidence of static cultural values. Indeed, it is useful here to sincerely consider Dr Rama Salla Dieng’s warning against reaching for the ‘usual explanations’ of ‘religion, culture, African values’ (Dieng, 2026). Digging deeper, a more convincing interpretation situates these developments within a politics of division that is both historically rooted and politically functional. In this context, anti-LGBT sentiment is not simply a reflection of cultural or popular attitudes, but rather a mechanism through which political elites mobilise support, consolidate authority, and construct a unified national identity in opposition to a perceived external threat.

In other words, while the persecution of gender and sexual minorities has historical antecedents (including inherited colonial legal frameworks and the nation-building questions and anxieties of the early post-colonial years), its current articulation reflects a strategic mobilisation of anti-imperialist rhetoric. Homosexuality is symbolically associated with Western liberalism, allowing governing elites to position themselves as defenders of cultural authenticity and national sovereignty. Indeed, this was quite explicitly described by Amadou Ba (Minister for Culture) as being ‘outside Senegalese customs, traditions and culture’ (RFI, 2026). However, in doing so, these governing elites depart significantly from the intellectual and political traditions of the Pan-Africanism that they claim to uphold.

By returning to the theoretical foundations and political praxis of key figures within this tradition, it becomes clear that the contemporary targeting of gender and sexual minorities represents not a continuation, but a misapplication, of Pan-African thought. This misapplication is not accidental, but intentional. Whether in Senegal, Mali, or Burkina Faso, we may observe a failure by their respective civilian and military rulers to deliver on the radical economic outlook that was promised and had thus far functioned as a source of popular legitimacy for their governance. In other words, Pan-Africanism was a wind of change that toppled governments and brought a younger generation to power ; yet in the years that have immediately followed, nothing has changed in the economic realities of concerned citizens. This has created a serious political challenge, with Senegal’s PASTEF having gone from enjoying the support of student protestors in 2023-2024, to being the target of student protests in 2025-2026. A student was killed by the police in the ensuing government crackdown, while other students voicing a growing youth dissatisfaction with Ousmane Sonko, the founder and leader of PASTEF : ‘Sonko nous a vendu du rêve, mais il n’a rien changé »/ ‘Sonko sold us a dream, but he hasn’t changed anything’ (Soumaré, 2026).

‘It’s a shame – we weren’t expecting this, especially coming from this regime, ’ said Pathe Baila Barry, a classmate of Diallo, who said he was beaten in the raid on his dormitory (Crowe, 2026).

Though the move to oppose homosexuality had been a campaign promise of PASTEF, the parliamentary approval of the new anti-LGBT measures have come just weeks after the government’s assault on student protestors. Human bodies are serving as a convenient distraction from the failures of these Pan-African political elites ; ‘and distractions, in politics, are rarely accidental’ (Dieng, 2026). Reorienting ourselves towards the Pan-African mission that they claim to serve, we find an ideological mismatch between the rhetoric and theory of the region’s Pan-African forefathers on the one hand, and the recent actions taken by contemporary Pan-African political leadership on the other. To explore this, we must first briefly define Pan-Africanism, outlining the liberatory and humanist ethos of the term and concept.

Pan-Africanism is compatible with LGBT+ rights

Pan-Africanism, like any philosophy, has various roots and competing meanings. Early conceptualisations tend to be traced to the Black (or interchangeably African) diaspora among whom various conferences were held during the early 20th century. These events took place in London (1900), Paris (1919), Brussels (1921), Lisbon (1923) and New York (1927). Their locations somewhat reflect the diaspora-oriented focus of the discourses and ideology discussed, as set out during the first congress at the turn of the century (McEachrane, 2020, p. 236) organised by Henry Sylvester Williams (Richards, 2020). Indeed, it was at this conference that W.E.B. Du Bois remarked, in his signed address to the nations of the world advocating for pan-Africanism, that ‘the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line’ (Du Bois, 1900). He repeated this concept of race forming the dividing ‘line between the bond and free’ in The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois, 1903, p. 190), one among his broader oeuvre in the service of his Pan-African longing for ‘a new human unity, pulling the ends of earth nearer, and all men, black, yellow, and white’ (Du Bois, 1903, p. 63).

Subsequent Pan-African congresses built on these themes, including the 1945 congress held in Manchester, which, according to Pan-African scholars, was ‘seen as the apogee of the movement’ (Adi, 2018. P. IX). Yet while the earlier Pan-African Congresses had focused primarily on race and the affairs of the diaspora, the 1945 congress took a different direction and reoriented its focus towards the African continent. Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah was notably in attendance at this conference, a man who would go on to lead Africa’s first successful post-colonial independence movement. Other African independence figures in attendance at the 1945 congress alongside Nkrumah, included Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta and Malawi’s Hastings Banda. If the geographic and ideological reorientation following this conference is not made apparent by the attendance of these historical giants, then we may instead consider the mere fact that subsequent Pan-African congresses were finally held on African soil (Geiss, 1969, p. 187). The continental focus of these later discourses and events highlighted a growing call for a global solidarity to the cause of liberating the African continent from direct colonial rule – now understood as a key step towards ending the inequalities suffered by all those of African descent around the world. Nkrumah himself wrote as much in his own works, which routinely identify the African independence struggle as belonging not only to continental Africans but also for peoples of African descent around the globe. For example, in Africa Must Unite, he explicitly identified the 1945 Manchester Congress as having provided a concrete expression of the politically interchangeable concepts of ‘Pan-Africanism’ and ‘African Nationalism’, co-constituted by the shared desire ‘to promote the well-being and unity of African peoples and peoples of African descent throughout the world’ (Nkrumah, 1963, p. 134).

Returning to the focus of this text, the recent persecution of LGBT Africans by both Pan-African civilian and military governments – we may consider a warning outlined in yet another of Nkrumah’s works :

‘The greatest contribution that Africa can make to the peace of the world is to avoid all the dangers inherent in disunity, by creating a political union which will also by its success, stand as an example to a divided world’ . (Nkrumah, 1961)

Here, Nkrumah is framing unity on state-political terms – i.e. African unity is a political cohesion that transcends ethnic, tribal, cultural, and racial divides, as opposed to replicating the ethno-state or nation-state models that were and remain dominant throughout Europe and much of Asia. This is one way of reading the above, but another interpretation assumes a universal intention from Nkrumah that would broadly align with his humanist politics. Nkrumah very much held a humanist appreciation for institutions like the United Nations ; in his own words during an address to the UN general assembly, ‘I look upon the United Nations as the only organization that holds out any hope for the future of mankind’ (The New York Times, 1960). Nkrumah held that humanist entities like the UN were key to bringing colonialism to an end worldwide, claiming that UN membership is incompatible with the crime of colonialism and that the security council should provide for a permanent African seat. I contend that this was not only for Africa to exercise a proportionate influence on global geopolitical affairs, but also and perhaps more simply for Africa and Africans to claim their rightful seat at the table of mankind.

Nkrumah reiterates his support of and adherence to humanism in Consciencism, his exploration of the discursive foundations of African cultures and societies. He explicitly writes of what he deems to be fundamentally humanist principles – i.e. ‘the traditional African egalitarian view of man and society’ (Nkrumah, 1964, p. 60) – as not only defining African communities but also the African personality, to be asserted and explicitly identified from its African, Euro-Christian, and Arab-Islamic influences (Mazrui, 1986). The text makes clear his view of humanism as the philosophical foundation of his African socialist and Pan-African political ideology. With this in mind, legislating division by discriminating against Africa’s sexual and gender minorities, is directly at odds with the humanist tradition of such an important African independence figure and Pan-African theorist. If, as outlined by Nkrumah, humanism and egalitarianism form the foundation of African traditions and values, then it follows that these recent developments are in opposition to African traditions – as opposed to the claims of the Pan-African political leadership of Senegal and Burkina Faso that these are moves to protect and affirm an African identity.

Nkrumah’s own daughter, Samia Nkrumah, weighed in on the matter when anti-LGBT laws passed a parliamentary reading in Ghana (Affre, 2024). Like the measures introduced or expanded in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali, the 2024 Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill include prison sentences for Ghana’s LGBT minorities. Samia Nkrumah described the legislation as being ‘extremely harsh and cruel’ , aligning with her father’s Pan-African and humanist principles in warning that the legislation would ‘contribute to an unnecessary social division which could prove disastrous’ (Affre, 2024). As is alleged to be the case in Senegal (Corey-Broulet, 2026), policy advocacy and support for these laws has been traced to far-right US evangelical groups. Perhaps this serves well to illustrate the seriousness and extent of this divisive trend that is manifesting across West Africa ; even the home of the first successful and perhaps greatest formal independence-era Pan-African, could not use its political heritage to shield itself and its citizens from external influences seeking to sow the seeds of division.

Ghana is not alone in this ; Burkina Faso is another country with a strong Pan-African political heritage and yet has similarly experienced the division of unnecessary anti-LGBT measures. Thomas Sankara, the military leader who renamed the country from the colonial Hauta Volta (Upper Volta) to Burkina Faso – a mixture of local languages meaning land of the upright man in some translations – follows Nkrumah in advocating a (somewhat) humanist conception of Pan-Africanism, though through an explicit and avowedly Marxist framework. Unlike Nkrumah, whose nation inherited colonial-era anti-homosexual laws (with little evidence, in both political rhetoric and the grounded reality, that this legislation was ever really enforced), Sankara did not inherit any repressive anti-LGBT laws from the colonial epoch – and he elected not to introduce any such restrictions during his time in power.

In a rather reasonable and rational manner, Sankara instead focused his political efforts on developing his nation, opposing imperialism, and promoting women’s rights. For example, alongside banning regressive practices such as female genital mutilation, Sankara’s political project sought to build a free and prosperous society in which women were equal to men in all domains (Sankara, 1990, p. 28), following in Nkrumah’s steps by promoting women to the forefront of national politics and governance. Indeed, he claimed in a 1987 speech that Burkina Faso’s anti-imperialist and Africanist political revolution simply could not ever succeed without the emancipation of women. More than that, for Sankara, patriarchy was anti-thetical to the Pan-African and anti-imperialist politics he espoused ; ‘may my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence’ (Sankara, 1987). This is important because the anti-patriarchal rhetoric and policies of Sankara’s political tradition, intersect heavily with queer freedoms. In other words, the rights of gender minorities are tied to those of sex minorities. As a test of this, wherever in the world we see an assault on LGBT rights, it is no coincidence that you will inevitably see conversations begin, or expand, on questioning women’s rights, too.

Betraying the legacy of Nkrumah and Sankara

The present-day Pan-African military rulers in Burkina Faso have not yet boldly followed in Sankara’s footsteps in regard to opposing patriarchy. This matter is even worse in Senegal, where promoting ‘Pan-African values’ (Négoce, 2026) was recently invoked as a justification for a ban on women’s hair extensions and products at the Grand Théâtre de Dakar – supported by a government with a noticeably low number of women appointed to senior posts, with just four women appointed to the Pan-African government’s 34 ministries, cabinet members and state secretaries. The interests of women and/or LGBT Africans appear to have been neglected by West Africa’s present-day Pan-African political leadership, certainly made apparent by the lack of anti-patriarchal policies if not clear in the reduced gender diversity of governing positions. For Burkina Faso, this is especially contradictory given that the current administration has not only explicitly claimed to be continuing Sankara’s political project, but also relies on his imagery to sustain popular support.

Like Captain Thomas Sankara, Captain Ibrahim Traoré dons a similar political image ; a red beret, military attire, and anti-imperialist rhetoric to attract the popular wave of Pan-Africanism that is sweeping yet again around the region. Of Sankara, Traoré himself claimed : ‘His actions and his words are an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a compass that guides the Popular Progressive Revolution toward a new Burkina Faso’ (Stropasolas, 2025) ; but then, we must conclude Traoré’s actions are completely misaligned with the anti-patriarchal and liberatory ethos of Sankara’s political legacy.

By revisiting the theory and rhetoric of the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara, this analysis has demonstrated how Pan-Africanism, as inherited by these political and historical giants, was historically conceptualised with a strong anti-patriarchal, liberatory, and universal outlook. However, in its contemporary form, we observe what may only be described as a total misapplication of Pan-Africanism. Whether practiced by civilian governors or military rulers, the Pan-Africanism of the 21st century has broken away from the humanist and progressive ethos of ideological predecessors. This is a problem ; Pan-Africanism in the past, whether that of Nkrumah in the 1960s or Sankara in the 1980s, had a clear roadmap. The political project was one that promised economic decolonisation and national development, political and social emancipation for all Africans – with not a single text, pamphlet, or speech making a case for marginalising any single group.

The task now rests with us, to recognise and articulate this deviation from pan-African theory – and not as a political stick to criticise governments (military or civilian) with whom we may not necessarily align, but more critically as a reminder to the popular support base whose authentically Pan-African desires are what sustains these governments. Allowing people to believe that this contemporary anti-LGBT politics is somehow an authentic expression of African identity, is to concede the ideological terrain to those who seek to redefine liberation in exclusionary terms. If Pan-Africanism is to retain its emancipatory ethos and meaning, as expressed by the likes of Nkrumah and Sankara, then it must be reclaimed from such appropriations and re-situated within the universalist and humanist framework from which it emerged.

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