The 1983 Upper Voltan coup d'état attempt was an event which took place on 28 February 1983, in the Republic of Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso), just a few months after a previous coup d'état on 7 November 1982, carried out by radical elements of the army against the regime of Colonel Saye Zerbo, who himself came to power in a 1980 coup against Major General Sangoulé Lamizana. The coup attempt on 28 February, which targeted the Council of Popular Salvation and its leader Major Dr. Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, failed.
President Ouédraogo would however not remain in power for long – large protest against his rule began on 17 May, after he purged the government of several radicals including Captain Thomas Sankara. Within a few months, he was deposed in a coup on 3 August, led by Captain Blaise Compaoré, who made his close friend Sankara President. This began a period of societal transformation in Upper Volta, soon renamed Burkina Faso by the left-wing revolutionary Sankara, who himself would be overthrown in 1987 by Compaoré.