The news of Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba’s extradition from Togo back to the waiting, calloused arms of Burkina Faso is the kind of geopolitical comedy that writes itself, though the punchline is usually delivered via a firing squad or a very deep hole in the ground. For those who haven't been paying attention to the high-stakes game of musical chairs played with Kalashnikovs in West Africa, Damiba is the former lieutenant-colonel who decided in early 2022 that he could do a better job than the civilian government. He was wrong, of course—spectacularly so—and was subsequently shuffled off the stage by Ibrahim Traoré, a man whose primary qualification for leadership seems to be a more photogenic beret and an even shorter fuse. Now, the state has decided that Damiba isn't just a failure, but a conspirator in a "murder plot" aimed at destabilizing the very instability he helped create. It’s a wonderful bit of narrative gymnastics that only a military junta could perform without pulling a muscle.

The sheer banality of this cycle is what truly grinds the gears of anyone with a functioning frontal lobe. We are expected to view this extradition as a victory for "justice" or "security," as if the word "justice" hasn't been battered into submission by successive waves of men in camouflage. Damiba, currently residing in the international diplomatic equivalent of a "time-out" in Togo, is being brought back to face accusations of a murder plot. The irony is so thick you could use it to reinforce the hull of a tank. In a region where power is regularly seized at the end of a barrel, accusing a former coup leader of "destabilization" is like accusing a shark of getting things wet. It is his nature; it is the ecosystem he was raised in, and to pretend otherwise is to engage in a level of cognitive dissonance that would make a flat-earther blush.

Damiba himself has remained silent. This is perhaps his most astute political move to date. What is there to say? To offer a defense would be to acknowledge the legitimacy of a system that only exists because he, and then his successor, decided that systems don't matter. Silence is the only logical response when you are being processed by a machine you helped build. It’s a silent recognition that the rules of the game are: "Might makes right until someone with more might says you’re wrong." The lack of commentary from the ex-president underscores the vacuum of ideas at the heart of this entire saga. There are no grand ideologies here, no vision for the Burkinabè people beyond who gets to sit in the armored Mercedes and who gets to rot in the prison cell while the rest of the country wonders where their next meal is coming from.

The international community, that collection of well-dressed vultures and professional hand-wringers, watches from the sidelines with a mixture of feigned horror and genuine greed. The West issues its standard, template-based press releases about "due process" and "constitutional order," phrases that carry as much weight in Ouagadougou as a chocolate teapot. Meanwhile, the newer players on the block—those from the East who are more than happy to trade security for gold mines—watch with a pragmatic indifference. As long as the planes keep flying and the minerals keep moving, it doesn't matter which man in a beret is accusing which other man in a beret of trying to kill him. It’s a grotesque pageant where the only losers are the citizens, who continue to be caught between the jihadists Damiba couldn't stop and the "saviors" who are too busy hunting internal ghosts to protect the borders.

The "murder plot" accusation serves a very specific purpose. It isn't about truth; it's about consolidation. By bringing Damiba back, Traoré isn't just settling a score; he is sending a message to every other lieutenant-colonel with a dream and a suppressed rifle. It is the ritualization of the purge. By framing the struggle as a criminal conspiracy rather than a political disagreement, the current regime attempts to drape itself in the tattered robes of legality. It’s a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook: turn your predecessor into a monster to justify why your own monstrous actions are necessary. We are witnessing the cannibalization of the officer class, a process that would be fascinating if it weren't so pathologically predictable.

Ultimately, the extradition of Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba is a depressing reminder of the stagnation of human progress. We are watching a 21st-century country being governed by 12th-century logic, wrapped in the aesthetic of 20th-century militarism. Whether Damiba is guilty of a murder plot is irrelevant. In the theatre of the absurd that is contemporary West African politics, everyone is guilty of something, if only of the arrogance to believe they could fix a broken state by breaking it further. So, let the trial begin, or the "interrogation," or whatever euphemism they choose to use this month. The names change, the hats change, but the tragedy remains exactly the same. We are all just waiting for the next guy to get extradited, completing the circle of futility once more.