Travel ban targets former prime minister
Apollinaire Kyélem de Tambèla, who served as Burkina Faso’s prime minister until December 2024, has been prohibited from leaving the country by the authorities led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré.
The restriction marks another step in the tightening grip that the transitional government has placed on selected political and public figures. Kyélem de Tambèla was appointed to head the government by Traoré in October 2022 and remained in office until his departure two years later.
Because the ban was imposed after he had already left the government, it raises a central question: what reasons do the authorities consider sufficient today to limit his movements?
Broader concerns about public freedoms
Beyond the personal case of the former prime minister, the affair draws attention to the state of civil liberties in Burkina Faso. A travel ban is a significant measure, and when it is applied to someone who has held the highest offices of the state, it deserves clear and transparent justification.
The context makes the decision even more delicate. Since Traoré came to power, the Burkinabè authorities have justified a series of exceptional measures by citing the fight against terrorism, the defence of sovereignty and the need to prevent destabilisation attempts. Kyélem himself had publicly spoken, while still prime minister, of several attempts targeting the transitional government.
Unanswered legal questions
Yet the security argument does not resolve every question. Should a restriction on freedom be limited in time? What legal basis supports it? Who ordered it? And what precise charges or reasons are being invoked against the former prime minister?
Burkinabè law sets out the conditions under which citizens may leave the national territory. The issue is therefore to establish the exact legal framework under which the measure against Kyélem de Tambèla was taken.
A test for the transitional government
The case now extends well beyond the career of the former prime minister. It poses a wider question about the nature of transitional power: how far can it go in the name of national security without further weakening individual freedoms?
For Ibrahim Traoré, the decision risks fuelling debate about the shrinking political space in Burkina Faso. Preventing a former government figure from leaving the country is never a politically neutral act.
In Ouagadougou, the Kyélem de Tambèla case could therefore become a new indicator of the relationship between security, political control and public freedoms under military rule.
