Raymond Ayivi | CODI Togo
Presentation and Current Affairs
The Coalition of the Togolese Diaspora for Change in power and Democracy (CODI Togo) is a gathering of associations from the African, American, European, and Asian continents. Headquartered in Paris, France, at 66 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, 75008, CODI Togo aims to organize the Togolese diaspora into a united, committed, and independent civil society force. CODI Togo participates alongside the Togolese people in the fight for democracy and change in power in Togo, and works for equal participation of citizens in the political scene. It formulates political propositions and launches actions aimed at resetting Togo in order to promote the social, political, and economic engagement of citizens. CODI Togo also creates a more supportive community that ensures the birth, the rooting, and the sustainability of democracy in Togo. In addition to actions on the ground, our organization works for an effective full participation of Togolese diasporans in the electoral processes.
In light of these objectives, CODI Togo would like to draw your attention to the very curious and very worrying sociopolitical situation in Togo.
Actually, Togo is a West African country struggling to complete its democratization process that began in the 1990s, due to the capture of state power and the refusal of political change by top officials.
After the death in 2005 of the President Gnassingbé Eyadema, who came to power following a bloody military coup in 1967, the high military hierarchy chose and pledged allegiance to his son Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé in the night of February 5, 2005. The army, notorious as such, often intrudes into the political game and constitutes a true supporter of the regime in place. Since then, the country has experienced a succession of political crises following constitutional and/or institutional coups, which constitute a major obstacle to socio-economic development and the advent of democracy.
State justice system, administration, and institutions are far from embodying the principles and values of independence and neutrality. The separation of powers remains an illusion. Public spaces and freedoms are systematically restricted; freedom of the press and of expression clash with repressive laws. Violations of human rights are constant. Togo currently has about hundred political prisoners and exiles in its walls.
The sociopolitical context in Togo is marked by a latent tension, talk less of palpable tension among the populations and essential components of the nation due to the indifference and contempt that the Head of State and his collaborators have shown towards the multiple social, economic, and political demands raised by these populations, including civil society actors, the diaspora, and democratic opposition political parties.”
On 31 December 2023, the mandate of the parliament in the sixth republic had expired. The government was unable to hold legislative elections within the time frame set by the Constitution. Despite the numerous calls from the opposition and civil societies to the government and the Head of State to open talks in view of reaching a political consensus in order to hold these elections, the regime has ignored them and set the date of the parliamentary and regional elections for April 20, 2024.
While all Togolese had their eyes turned towards the legislative and the regional elections as the political parties were fully engaged in preparations, they had learnt with surprise and dismay that a new bill for a new Constitution is considered by the committee of former legislators for approval thereby providing a new Constitution that guarantees lifelong power to a single family, or better still to a single individual to the detriment of the profound aspirations of the Togolese people and the stability of the country.
There is even the possibility to choose a president by a parliament mainly dominated by regime. This without debate, over a period of seven (06) years, with “resetting the time afresh”, renewable once. In other words, it is a matter of securing a sixth term for Faure Gnassingbé thereby giving him a lifelong power.
Despite the outcry that this whole maneuver has raised, the regime has pursued its constitutional coup with parliamentarians whose mandate had ended.
Today, after much procrastination, the Togolese regime is blindly navigating between 2 Constitutions, the fourth and the fifth, with a so-called transition period that runs until May 2025 according to the government, while Faure Gnassingbé’s missi dominici is to rush to the 4 corners of the world, particularly to India, to inquire about the realities of a parliamentary regime. Are we putting the cart before the horse? However, the worm in Togo has been uncovered, it is to establish a monarchy system in the country no matter its cost to the Togolese people.
TOGO: historical reminder and memories
Starting from the killing of Sylvanus Olympio, the first president of Togo, on January 13, 1963 to the failed assassination of Guy Marius Sagna on September 29 2024. Let us recall the facts. While finding refuge in the US Embassy in Lomé following death threats from the less human mutineers, it was the then American Ambassador himself who handed over President Sylvanus Olympio to these soldiers, supported by French officials. To speak like our great historian Têtêvi Godwin Tété-Adjalogo, here are the 3 elements that led to the assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio: “first, the project to create a new Togolese national currency; second the project to create a new Togolese national currency; third, the project to create a new Togolese national currency. “Pan-Africanism and imperialism do not go well together!
“Sentinel, what do you say about the night? The night is long due but the day is coming!” These are the words of Sylvanus Olympio, on the day Togo gained political independence on April 27, 1960. It should be remembered that from the circle of statemen in 1922 to the march towards Togo’s self-determination in 1958, the resistance of freedom fighters was intense.
Here are some of the then resistance fighters:
Messan Maximilien Aihtson, the founder and leader of the Juvento party (Togolese Youth). “No country has freed itself from despotism without bloodshed!”, he said. He is the initiator of the slogan “Ablodé” which means total independence, freedom and sovereignty. His collaborators were: Ben Apaloo, Lawyer Anani Santos, Abalo Firmin, … Juvento is an ally to the CUT party (Committee of Togolese Unity) of Sylvanus Olympio.
Dr. Martin Aku (son of Andreas Aku, a nationalist pastor), fell into the pot of resistance fighters for sovereignty. He embodied the first electoral victory of the Togolese nationalists over the French colonial power on November 10, 1946.
Pa Augustino Ezéchiel de Souza, known as “Gazozo”, symbol of the local bourgeoisie’s integration into public affairs, he was the president of the Council of Elders in Lomé. Eyewitness to the triumph of the nationalist parties during the elections/referendum of Sunday, April 27, 1958 organized under the auspices of the United Nations. He died on April 25, 1960, exactly two days before the festivities of the official proclamation of the Ablodé.
So, Togolese youth, what have you done with the heritage of your elders?
The history of the Togolese Republic has recorded beautiful pages of the struggle for independence in the 50s and 60s with real fighters. This dream has turned into a nightmare since January 13, 1963. More than sixty years down the line, Togo has still not recovered, on the contrary, it continues its descent into the abyss of violence and outrageous repression.
A few selected excerpts from volume 1 of the book “History of Togo―the long night of terror” under the Gnassingbé:
– Commander Paul Comlan arrested on the pretext for not greeting General Yakubu Gowon as a Head of State when he visited Lomé, after leaving power in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In his cell, his ribs, neck, and testicles were smashed so he died.
– Another abominable case is that of Lieutenant Gaston Gnehou Gneyou, a direct brother-in-law of Eyadéma (elder brother of the first lady Hubertine) wounded by a point-blank shot on the beach, a commando turned into medical doctors in white blouse had gone to execute him on his hospital bed in Lomé. Officially, the officer is said to have gathered other officers with an intent to conduct a coup d’état.
– Kpatcha Gnassingbé, Faure Gnassingbé’s younger half-brother, he has been in prison since April 15, 2009, and is still vegetating there. As if to say, among the Gnassingbés, we don’t joke around with the presidential chair!―Very recently again, successively in January and March 2024, the sudden death in exile of the priest who chaired the National and Sovereign Conference, Archbishop Philippe Fanoko Kpodzro and his political protégé who won the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Gabriel Messan Agbéyimé Kodjo, who died in an unclear circumstance in Ghana.
In Togo, the rapport between journalists and political power has never been good. It’s the “I love you, me neither!” And it is always under the increasingly suspicious gaze of successive regimes and with the interesting support from the French soft power.
– An unrealistic scene that we invite you to watch on YouTube, a live exchange of words between a photo-reporter journalist Didier Ledoux, from the independent Togolese daily Liberté and Lieutenant-Colonel Romuald Letondot, “the French advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Army.
– We remember the order given by a French Ambassador in Lomé to the HAAC (High Authority of Audiovisual and Communication) for the closure of a newspaper. The rest, we know a journalist after prison, passed from life to death, and his colleague now lives in exile, far from Togolese soil.
– Atsutsè Kokouvi Joachim Agbobli, a renowned historian, kidnapped at night from his hospital bed and later found dead with bruises on his body on the beach in Lomé. Note: in my country, Togo, the beach, the lagoon and other lakes, even the sea, are used to directly bury political corpses. It’s less expensive!
This Gnassingbé regime has lasted too long: there is no family in Togo that does not deplore political atrocities, or does not know the jailers appointed by Eyadéma and his son. There are now more than a hundred political prisoners in Togo!
Even the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Court of Justice has not able to have Faure Gnassingbé and the Togolese state comply with its various verdicts.
What to do now after the Gnassingbé father and son have taken over Togo?
– Today, you may see regimes hoisting the flag of Pan-Africanism to restore their image. Remember, in the early days of the single party, the RPT of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, the fundamental three-dimensional credo was summed up as follows: “National Union-anti-imperialism-authenticity”. The reality was quite different for more than twenty years before the National Sovereign Conference of July 1991.
– Even today, with the UNIR party of the son, Faure Gnassingbé, it is the same vein. With Unir pour la République, it is the Republic itself that disappears in the clouds of the galloping monarchy. In view of all the above and in order to help the Togolese people who are suffering martyrdom, from the height of this beautiful platform, CODI Togo launches a solemn appeal to democrats and pan-Africanists to unite for the opening of a political and peaceful transition leading to the change of power and democracy. By doing so:
– Let the Pan-African youth organize themselves region by region to fight the enemies from within Africa, in particular African leaders who allow imperialism in all its forms to flourish. It is these imperialism setbacks that prevent the emergence of a new free, just, democratic and sovereign society.
– Let each African express his or her active solidarity with the Togolese people to help drive out this criminal and barbaric regime vomited by the Togolese.
– Let the Togolese diaspora work tirelessly alongside other African diasporas to build a common project, the rebirth of Africa, which will ipso facto give back to the Togolese their nation-state in all its sovereignty.