Thomas Sankara and Stringer Bell: Fellow Travellers In The Tragic Quest For Reform

Adebayo Adeniran
4 min readJun 11, 2023

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Image captured via Twitter

The wire, is in my view, the greatest show of all time.

David Simon, in his breathtaking perspicacity, put together a treatise on post-industrial America, which was disguised as a cop show on HBO.

Over five seasons, we were treated to an extraordinary cast of characters, who were depicted not as one-dimensional folk but as individuals who were as complex as they came.

You had the likes of Avon Barksdale, who by way of the drug trade, was doing great damage and yet actively giving back to the community by way of supporting the local gym which Dennis “cutty” wise put together when the latter realized that the drug game wasn’t for him anymore.

But of all the players we met on The Wire, one stood out for me: Stringer Bell.

Russell “stringer” Bell was a man apart in more ways than one: Our protagonist understood the drug game far better than his contemporaries, eschewed violence for the part (preferred to outsource it to players outside of his immediate circle) and sought to forge alliances with his bitterest rivals to maximize profits — a decision which inevitably led to his betrayal and killing by his closest friend and business partner — Avon Barksdale.

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Adebayo Adeniran
Adebayo Adeniran

Written by Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible

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