Burkina Faso has barred its former prime minister, Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambèla, from travelling abroad, under a decision issued by the authorities of Captain Ibrahim Traoré.
The move adds another chapter to the gradual tightening of control exercised by the transitional government over a set of political and public figures. Appointed to lead the government by Ibrahim Traoré in October 2022, Kyélem de Tambèla ran the executive until his departure in December 2024.
An exit ban aimed at a man who no longer governs
The restriction therefore falls on someone who has already left the government. That timing raises an unavoidable question: for what reasons do the authorities now judge it necessary to confine his movements?
The case extends well past the individual concerned and touches directly on the state of public freedoms in Burkina Faso. A ban on leaving national territory is no minor measure — and when it targets a figure who has occupied the highest offices of the state, it calls for a clear and transparent justification.
What a travel ban implies at the summit of power
Context heightens the sensitivity. Since Ibrahim Traoré took power, the Burkinabè authorities have justified a series of exceptional measures through the fight against terrorism, the defence of sovereignty and the need to thwart destabilisation attempts. Kyélem himself had publicly mentioned, while still prime minister, the existence of several attempts targeting the transition.
Security logic does not answer everything
The security argument, however, leaves several questions open:
- Should such a restriction of freedom be limited in time?
- On what legal basis does it rest?
- Who ordered it?
- What charges or precise motives are invoked against the former prime minister?
Burkinabè legislation frames the conditions under which citizens may leave the country. The issue is therefore to establish within which precise legal framework the measure against Kyélem de Tambèla was adopted.
A broader test for the transitional power
The affair now reaches beyond the personal trajectory of a former head of government. It raises a wider question about the nature of the transition itself: how far can it go in the name of national security without further eroding individual liberties?
For Ibrahim Traoré, the decision above all risks feeding the debate on the shrinking of political space in Burkina Faso. Stopping a former government figure from leaving the country is never a politically neutral act.
In Ouagadougou, the Kyélem de Tambèla case may well become a new marker of the relationship between security, political control and public freedoms under military rule.
