Burkina Faso Junta Chief, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, was inaugurated as president on Wednesday, just over three weeks after he toppled elected president Roch Marc Christian Kabore in a coup.
In a televised ceremony held at the constitutional court, Damiba swore before the country’s highest constitutional body to “preserve, respect, support and defend the constitution” and the nation’s laws and “essential business” of key decisions approved by the junta.
Damiba was declared President by the country’s top constitutional body after a coup last month.
According to legal sources, the Constitutional Council on determined that “Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, lieutenant-colonel in the national armed forces, president of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (the official name of the junta), is the president” of Burkina Faso.
The former head state, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, had faced a wave of public anger over his handling of a bloody jihadist insurgency.
Burkina Faso is struggling with a jihadist campaign that has claimed more than 2,000 lives and forced around 1.5 million to flee their homes.
The country has been suspended from the West African bloc ECOWAS, although it escaped sanctions following its decision to restore the constitution.
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