Speaking in the capital of Burkina Faso on Friday, Mali’s interim prime minister said that “democracy comes after security”, calling on citizens on both sides of the border to support their armed forces in the fight against the jihadists who are infesting the two countries under military rule. regimes.

“We decided to (…) fight for the peace of our people, to offer them security — physical, nutritional, educational, health, etc. — because without security there is no democracy, democracy comes after security,” said Sokel Kokala Maiga emerging from a joint cabinet of the two states.

He emphasized that the two countries will “shake hands” and “support” their armies to “go forward”, since “only they can restore national sovereignty and the trust of our peoples. Once that is done, the rest will follow.”

His Burkina Faso counterpart, Apollinaire Kylem de Tembella, said the joint cabinet allowed a course to be drawn up “to make the dreams of our peoples come true” and to consider how to start procedures “to establish a federation of the two countries, of the two peoples”.

It is not the first time that Mr. Kielem has referred to a “federation” of Mali and Burkina Faso. He floated the idea during a visit to Bamako in early February.

“In this perspective, a joint grand commission will meet in the near future in Bamako,” he said.

Burkina Faso, theater of two military coups in 2022, has been faced since 2015 with the escalating violence of the jihadists who appeared in Mali a few years earlier and spread beyond its borders.

The new government formed after the second coup of September 30, 2022 under Captain Ibrahim Traoré secured the departure of 400 French special forces soldiers who participated in Operation Saber and were based in Ouagadougou.

A scenario similar to that in Mali, where the regime that emerged after two coups (2020, 2021) showed the members of the Barkhane military mission of France the way out.

Mr. Sokel Maiga, who arrived yesterday Thursday in Ouagadougou, will attend today the opening ceremony of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision, FESPACO), in which Mali is an honored country.