Few heads of state command a cult following like the young world leader and military ruler of Burkina Faso, President Ibrahim Traoré.

Even in the US, Donald Trump's hypnotic power over his base is flickering as some of his staunchest supporters defect.

Beyond their shared charismatic pull, faux-isolationism and nationalist branding, there is something deeper that is required to maintain undying loyalty and complete dominion that Captain Traoré has almost perfectly instilled – a self-regulating silent surveillance that crushes dissent before it dares to start.

A carefully engineered media appearance

We were invited to Burkina Faso's capital city, Ouagadougou, to join an exclusive roundtable interview of Capt Traoré that was completely engineered by his communications department in a climate of repression, fear and intensifying terror attacks, and aired on Burkinabè state television before we were sent the footage for our own use.

We are the first Western media channel to interview Capt Traoré alongside Italian state TV channel Rai, all in French.

Our shared request for a translator or live translation equipment was refused, and we were warned that even a single utterance of English would bring the broadcast to an abrupt end.

We were ushered into a brightly lit, meticulously decorated boardroom after our electronics, personal belongings and pens were locked away in a cupboard. Two rows of seated top generals watched the live feed in a viewing room next door and audibly jeered at my questions.

In broken French, hastily learnt in a few days, I ask what his revolution means in practice. Is it a revolt against the West or an internal national change?

"A revolt against the West? No," he says.

"As a revolutionary, I like to make a distinction between peoples and politics. There are many in Europe, in the West, who support us in our struggle.

"We even see, on your TV programmes and so on, many people speaking out and supporting our struggle for freedom, and I think it's in everyone's interest."

'We want to assert ourselves'

The young president is being hailed as an anti-imperialist revolutionary across Africa and the Black diaspora since coming into power at 34 years old in 2022 in a military coup that punctuated a series of coups across the Sahel.

Shortly after his ascent, he cut ties with Burkina Faso's former coloniser France – expelling their troops and diplomats – and condemned attitudes in the West towards Africa while strengthening relations with Russia and China.

"Now, the policies of certain countries may be opposed to our ideology. And the revolution, logically, will fight this ideology because we want to assert ourselves.

"There are those who do not want us to assert ourselves, who want to keep us in slavery, in alienation. We, the revolution, are fighting against that."

He models himself on the founding father of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara – an iconic African revolutionary who led an anti-imperialist movement as president before he was assassinated in 1987.

As Capt Traoré spoke, I searched for the trademark Sankara spark in his eyes – dynamic, daring and hungry for change.

In spite of Capt Traoré's eloquence and command of the room, I did not see the spark.

A tightening grip on power

The captain is tightening his grip on power as he condemns imperialism globally and pushes trademark Sankara reform domestically that has seen key sectors like mining become nationalised.

But as he pushes for sovereignty and freedom from the West, his junta benefits from a $300m loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and $4.1bn in credit loans and grants from the World Bank while actively eroding civil liberties internally.

Capt Traoré introduced an anti-homosexuality bill for the first time in Burkina Faso's history, and journalists and activists critical of his regime have been sent to the frontline of the war his military is fighting against the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-backed jihadists.

"There is freedom of speech, but you can't speak against the revolution" was a recurring response from locals to our questions about the glaring restrictions.

Who decides what goes against the revolution? What are the red lines that get a journalist sent to fight on the frontline of a brutal war?

Those questions would not be answered by the Burkinabés who told us again and again that they cannot speak unfavourably and risk reprisals.

'Freedom has its limits'

So I asked Capt Traoré himself: Is there room for individual liberty in his revolution for full sovereignty? The freedom to love who one wants? To express oneself freely – to oppose his rule?

"There is freedom. Everyone is free to say what they want, to give their opinion and everything. Even on our TV channels, you see people giving their opinions," he replies.

I am unable to answer him without a translator, and even for French speakers at the table, only one follow-up question is allowed.

"But freedom has its limits," he continues.

"For example, we are a country at war. We will not allow anyone to demoralise our troops whilst they are on the battlefield.

"We will not allow that. We will not allow the local lackeys of imperialism among us to try to sabotage our struggle to bring our country back from the clutches of those imperialists."

Enforced disappearances and terror attacks

Human rights defenders have documented hundreds of enforced disappearances in Burkina Faso since 2023. Even activists who have fled the country are concerned about speaking online and risk their family members being targeted.

Security analysts sharing data on Burkina Faso's jihadist insurgency have told us they are losing on-ground sources as human rights monitors are tracked down and silenced across threatened provinces.

A report recently published by Human Rights Watch accuses the military and auxiliary forces of extrajudicial killings and ethnic violence that claimed the lives of at least 1,200 civilians in their fight against jihadist groups between January 2023 and August 2025. Traoré's government dismissed the findings as "conjecture and unfounded claims".

Early on in the round table, Capt Traoré declared that the terrorists had been pushed back to the border by Burkinabé forces.

The frequency of jihadist attacks documented across the country tells a different story.

Burkina Faso was ranked the second deadliest country for terrorism in 2025 by the Global Terrorism Index.

Security analysts and open source investigators estimate that jihadists have a strong presence in around 60% of the country's territory.

Data shared with Sky News of 1,200 verified jihadist attacks that killed over 4,500 people in Burkina Faso last year includes three of the deadliest terror attacks in the world in 2025.

Read more from Sky News:
Follow live: Iran war latest
Drug dealer jailed over death of Matthew Perry

The mapping of this data shows an uptick in terrorism from 2019 to 2025 and intensifying attacks since the onset of Traoré's military rule.

I ask the president about these large swathes of land – more than 60% – that are overrun with terrorists and effectively under their control, as evidenced online.

"Name a town. There are just a few towns I haven't visited yet. I go everywhere and everyone goes everywhere," he says.

"The art of lying is in the Western media. Many of these mainstream media outlets, as I like to say, do nothing but lie to sell you false information and make you believe that everything is going wrong.

"On the contrary, many things are going well here. Our economy is doing very well. We're doing better in our struggle and we're making progress. So be careful with what you read on the internet."

'Democracy kills'

We spent a week in the capital meeting students, artists and journalists, but the signs of growing repression came from an unlikely community.

A vigilante group organising rallies in support of Capt Traoré and shielding him from counter-coups and assassination attempts, Citizen Watch, lost a key member that we met on our first day of filming.

One of their leaders, Mahamadi Baguian, was arrested after calling out the minister of justice online. He died in police custody shortly after. The government did not respond to our request for comment.

As we learnt of the sudden death and met his mourning comrades, headlines resonated around the world from the roundtable we had been part of.

"Let's speak the truth; democracy is not for us," Capt Traoré was quoted again and again.

"Democracy kills. That's democracy. Is that what we want?"

(c) Sky News 2026: Inside the secretive country run by a military leader with a cult following