There might be more to this economist than meets the eye. He...

There might be more to this economist than meets the eye. He seems to have a political connection to the voters in the north where these insurgencies are more prevalent.

I've just had a brief look at the political players that arose out of the unrest in 2014 after the removal of the long standing President of BF, Blaise Compaoré, who ruled BF for 27 years. The uprising was sparked when Compaoré tried to amend the constitution to scrap political terms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Compaoré

The outcome of the 2015 election saw two main parties emerge.

The current president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré led the MPP to victory with 53.49% of the vote and a chap called Zéphirin Diabré won 29.65% of the vote for the UPC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zéphirin_Diabré

Zéphirin Diabré should not be mistaken for Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré the newly announced prime minister who just took office. I have briefly tried to search if they are related but most of the search items come up in french so I can't tell yet. Maybe someone else might know?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Joseph_Marie_Dabiré

Christophe Dabiré, the new prime minister, previously served in parliament for the CDP which was the old ruling party of Blaise Compaoré before Compaoré's outing in the uprising in 2014.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_for_Democracy_and_Progress

The old ruling party, the CDP, hold 16 out of 111 seats in the current national assembly (13.20%). Interestingly if you blow up the second small map in the link below (which you should see in the second link below) you find that the two current CDP held electorates are in the north of the country where most of the Jihadists attacks have occurred (see @2ic 's map of attack localities third link down and compare it to the election map in the second link).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Burkinabé_general_election

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/201...ile:Burkina_Faso_election_parliament_2015.png

https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/waf-valuation.4593292/page-186?post_id=37168555#.XE1O_Ro_WhA

I'm no political expert on this country, far from it, but this evidence/coincidence might point to a move on the part of the ruling party to appease the voters in the north who might be suffering disproportionately due to the attacks. Also the fact that the new prime minister was part of the old guard, ie in Compaoré's CDP party might also play into the hands of an appeasing unrest hypothesis. Just informed speculation on my part.Esh