1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état 1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état The 1980 Upper Voltan coup d'état took place on 25 November 1980 in the Republic of Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso). Following a long period of drought, famine, popular unrest and labour strikes, Colonel Saye Zerbo overthrew President Sangoulé Lamizana, another military leader. Zerbo himself would be overthrown only two years later. Upper Volta had gained independence from France in 1960, after which President Maurice Yaméogo set about creating a single-party dictatorship ruled by his own Voltaic Democratic Union. Following several rigged elections and a new austerity budget being instituted, the powerful trade unions rose
Upper Senegal and Niger Division of the Colony of Upper Senegal and Niger and the Creation of the Colony of Upper Volta" of 1 March 1919, which divided the colony into two distinct units: The colony of Upper Senegal and Niger is perhaps remembered most often by philatelists, since it issued a number of postage stamps during its existence. Upper Senegal and Niger Upper Senegal and Niger () was a colony in French West Africa, created on from colonial Senegambia and Niger by the decree "For the Reorganisation of the general government of French West Africa". At its creation, the "Colony of Upper Senegal