Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. The country extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital and largest city Lomé is located. Togo covers 57,000 square kilometres, making it one of the smallest countries in Africa, with a population of approximately 8 million, as well as one of the narrowest countries in the world with a width of less than 115 km (71 mi) between Ghana and its slightly larger eastern neighbor, Benin.
The history of Togo can be traced to archaeological finds which indicate that ancient local tribes were able to produce pottery and process tin. During the period from the 11th century to the 16th century, the Ewé, the Mina, the Gun, and various other tribes entered the region. Most of them settled in coastal areas.. The Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, followed by other European powers. Until the 19th century, the coastal region was a major slave trade centre, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast".
Politics of Togo takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Togo is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. After independence, the party system was dominated first by the authoritarian Rally for the Togolese People, and later by its successor party, Union for the Republic.
Gnassingbé Eyadéma was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was immediately succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé.
Elections in Togo take place within the framework of a presidential system. Both the President and the National Assembly are directly elected by voters. The country is a one party dominant state with the Union for the Republic in power.
Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé Eyadéma is a Togolese politician who has been the president of Togo since 2005. Before assuming the presidency, he was appointed by his father, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications, serving from 2003 to 2005.
Nicolas Grunitzky was the second president of Togo and its third head of state. He was President from 1963 to 1967. Grunitzky was Prime Minister of Togo from 1956 to 1958 under the French Colonial loi cadre system, which created a limited "national" government in their colonial possessions. He was elected Prime Minister of Togo —still under French administration— in 1956. Following the 1963 coup which killed his nationalist political rival Sylvanus Olympio, Grunitzky was chosen by the military committee of coup leaders to be Togo's second President.
Gilchrist Olympio is a Togolese politician who was a long-time opponent of the regime of Gnassingbé Eyadéma and was President of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), Togo's main opposition party from the 1990s til 2013. Olympio is the son of Sylvanus Olympio, Togo's first President, who was assassinated in a 1963 coup. He is now an ally of the current regime of Faure Gnassingbe, the son of the late President.
The Union of Forces for Change is an opposition political party in Togo. The President of the UFC was Gilchrist Olympio and its Secretary-General was Jean-Pierre Fabre until 10 August 2010. Olympio is the son of the first President of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, who was assassinated in a 1963 coup. On 10 August 2010, Jean-Pierre Fabre was elected as President of the party.
Emmanuel Bodjollé is a Togolese former military officer who was Chairman of the nine-member Insurrection Committee that overthrew the government of President Sylvanus Olympio on 13 January 1963.
Kléber Dadjo served as Interim President of Togo in his role as Chairman of the National Reconciliation Committee from 14 January 1967 to 14 April 1967 following the overthrow of President Nicolas Grunitzky's government.
The strains in Ghana–Togo relations stretch back to pre-independence days.
Antoine Idrissou Meatchi was a Togolese politician. He was vice president of Togo under Nicolas Grunitzky following the 1963 coup which overthrew Sylvanus Olympio. Additionally he served as minister of finance from 1963 to 1966. He was deposed in January 1967 in the coup organized by Étienne Eyadéma.
General elections were held in Togo on 5 May 1963, alongside a constitutional referendum. It followed a military coup earlier in the year which had ousted President Sylvanus Olympio, who had dissolved all political parties except his own Party of Togolese Unity in 1961. Nicolas Grunitzky, who had served as Prime Minister since shortly after the coup was elected President unopposed, whilst in the National Assembly election, a single list of candidates containing members of the Party of Togolese Unity, Juvento, the Democratic Union of the Togolese People and the Togolese People's Movement was put forward under the name "Reconciliation and National Union". It was approved by 98.6% of voters. Voter turnout was 91.1%.
The 1963 Togolese coup d'état was a military coup that occurred in the West African country of Togo on 13 January 1963. The coup leaders — notably Emmanuel Bodjollé, Étienne Eyadéma and Kléber Dadjo — took over government buildings, arrested most of the cabinet, and assassinated Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, outside the American embassy in Lomé. The coup leaders quickly brought Nicolas Grunitzky and Antoine Meatchi, both of whom were exiled political opponents of Olympio, together to form a new government.
The Democratic Union of the Togolese People was a political party in Togo.
Protests against Faure Gnassingbé have occurred throughout Togo, starting when President Faure Gnassingbé assumed power after the death of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma in February 2005.
The 1967 Togolese coup d'état was a bloodless military coup that occurred in the West African country of Togo on 13 January 1967. The leader of the coup, Lieutenant Colonel Étienne Eyadéma ousted Togo's second President, Nicolas Grunitzky, whom he essentially brought to power following the 1963 coup d'état.
The 1986 Togolese coup d'état attempt was a coup attempt that occurred in the West African country of Togo on 23 September 1986. The coup attempt consisted of a group of some 70 armed dissidents crossed into capital Lomé from Ghana in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of President General Gnassingbé Eyadéma.
The Ewe Unification Movement was a series of west African ethno-nationalist efforts which sought the unification of the Ewe peoples spread across what are now modern Ghana and Togo. It emerged as a direct political goal around 1945 under the colonial mandate of French Togoland, however the ideal of unifying the group has been an identifiable sentiment present amongst the ethnicity's leadership and wider population ever since their initial colonial partitions by the British and German Empires from 1874 to 1884. While there have been many efforts to bring about unification, none have ultimately been successful due to both the platform itself often being a secondary concern for political leadership, or inter/intrastate conflicts overshadowing them.
