OUAGADOUGOU — Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the military ruler who assumed power in 2022 and subsequently discovered that running a country is much easier without the nuisance of a scheduled departure, suggested Thursday that the people of Burkina Faso should simply “forget” about democracy.

Speaking during a roundtable aired on state television, the 38-year-old revolutionary leader explained that the psychological burden of participating in a representative government was too high a price for his citizens to pay. Traoré, who had originally pledged to hold elections by July 2024 before realizing that five more years of absolute authority would be more conducive to his personal schedule, noted that democracy is a foreign import that “kills.”

“People need to forget about the issue of democracy,” Traoré said, leaning back with the serene confidence of a man who recently banned 100% of his political opposition. “We have our own approach. It is an approach where I make the decisions, and everyone else remembers to be patriotic.”

To assist the public in the forgetting process, the junta has already implemented several memory-aiding measures, including the dissolution of all political parties in January and the suspension of any media outlets that accidentally remembered what a ballot looked like.

Officials in Ouagadougou confirmed that the transition to a “forgetful state” is proceeding ahead of schedule. “We found that citizens were spending far too much time comparing candidates and reading platforms,” said one junta spokesperson speaking on condition of anonymity. “Now, they can focus entirely on the revolutionary project of staying very quiet while we figure out how to extend the 2029 deadline.”

Traoré pointed to the neighboring example of Libya as a cautionary tale of what happens when a long-standing, stable autocracy is interrupted by the chaotic desire for self-determination. He neglected to mention a recent Human Rights Watch report indicating that his military had killed twice as many civilians as militants since 2023, framing the statistic instead as a triumph of sovereign efficiency over democratic bureaucracy.

“In a democracy, you have liars and smooth-talkers,” Traoré added, referring to the 15 political parties that existed in parliament before he kindly relieved them of their duties. “In our system, we have clarity. You know exactly who is in charge today, and you can be reasonably certain the same person will be in charge tomorrow, and for the next five years, and potentially forever if the security situation remains appropriately ‘complex.’”

At press time, the Ministry of National Rectification was reportedly working on a new primary school textbook titled *The Sun Always Rises in the East and Captain Traoré Always Decides the Rest*, designed to help the next generation forget even faster.