Adama Touré

Adama Abdoulaye Touré (1936 – 26 October 2012) was a Burkinabé politician. Touré was a radical student activist and became a leading member of the communist African Independence Party (PAI), and would become the leader of the party in Burkina Faso. He was a teacher at a military academy and played a significant role in forming the ideological outlook of military leaders who would govern the country after the 1983 revolution. He served as Minister of Information in the revolutionary government 1983–1984, but was imprisoned after the split between PAI and the military. He was known by the nickname "Lénine".

Youth Touré was born in 1936 in Kampti (today in Poni Province, then in Ivory Coast, French West Africa). He attended primary school from 1944 to 1950. He studied the Modern Colleges of Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouagadougou from 1951 to 1959, and obtained a baccalaureate degree. He was elected as the representative of the pupils at the Modern College of Bobo-Dioulasso in 1953. In 1956, he became the president of the Kampti Pupils Fraternal Union (UEFK). He would also be elected as the representative of the pupils at Modern College of Ouagadougou.

He obtained a degree in history and geography, as well as a on the resistance to the recruitment of Upper Voltan riflemen during World War I. He worked as a history and geography teacher at the Ecole Normale des Jeunes Filles in Thiès from 1966 to 1967.

Influence on Sankara His students at the PMK military school included the young cadets Thomas Sankara and Blaise Compaoré. Touré later became Sankara's political mentor; per , "he one who opened the eyes of President Thomas Sankara to the class struggle was Adama Touré, nicknamed Lenin, teacher in history and geography, studies director at Prytanée militaire de Kadiogo (PMK) during President Sankara's time at the establishment". Under Adama's leadership, as the liberation wars in Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique were winding down, PAI shifted its focus to domestic politics. PAI built mass movements, with the Patriotic League for Development (LIPAD) movement bringing the influence of the underground PAI out of the shadows. He remained in the post as general secretary of PAI until 1990.

After leaving the PMK military school, he served as Director of General Secondary Teaching, later Director of General and Technical Secondary Teaching from 1981 to 1983. During May–June 1984 Touré was on a tour of Europe, during which he spoke publicly on the tensions between LIPAD and the militaries in the government.

Touré was dismissed from the government in August 1984. He was detained in October 1984. In early November 1984 Touré was transferred to a Sûreté générale police post, where he met fellow PAI prisoners Hama Arba Diallo and his name-sake Adama Touré.

Later years He worked as the History and Geography Cell at the Burkina Pedagogical Institute between 1987 and 1989. He became the founding director of Lycée Privé de la Jeunesse in 1990. Touré died during the night between 26 and 27 October 2012.