Togo

• 1. Introduction

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  Togo, a country in West Africa, is less than 115 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. That is the distance between Ghana on one side and Benin on the other. Yet the country stretches north from the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital Lomé sits on the coast, all the way to the border with Burkina Faso. Roughly 8 million people live in this long, thin, tropical strip, and it is counted among the least developed countries in the world.

  Its shape was settled by outsiders. So was its name, which once belonged to a single small town. How did that name come to cover a whole nation, and who decided where the borders ran? Who has governed Togo since independence, and by what means? And how many different peoples, with their own shrines, languages and origin stories, fit inside such a small space?

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• 2. By the Water

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  The word Togo comes from two Ewe words: to, meaning water, and go, meaning shore. It can be rendered as "by the water" or "behind the sea". At first it named only one town, today called Togoville. Later the Germans stretched the name over the whole territory, and it outlived their rule.

  Between the 11th and 16th centuries, new peoples arrived in the region. The Ewe came in from the west, while the Mina and the Gun came from the east, and most of them settled along the coast. Archaeological finds show that earlier societies already made pottery and worked iron.

  In the 16th century the Atlantic slave trade began. For about two hundred years the coast served as a trading centre for Europeans looking for captives. That trade gave Togo and its neighbours the grim name "The Slave Coast".

  In 1884, during the European scramble for Africa, a document was forcibly signed at Togoville with King Mlapa III. It let Germany claim a protectorate over a stretch of coast, and German control then crept inland. The borders were fixed after German forces captured the hinterland and after agreements with France and Britain. In 1905 the territory became the German colony of Togoland.

  The local population was forced to work, to grow cotton, coffee and cocoa, and to pay taxes. A railway and the port of Lomé were built so that these crops could be shipped out. The Germans also introduced new cultivation techniques.

  On the 26th of August 1914, weeks after the Allied invasion of the colony, German forces surrendered. Britain and France proclaimed a joint Anglo-French condominium. It collapsed on the 7th of December 1916, and Togoland was split into British and French zones.

  On the 20th of July 1922, the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate over the western part and France a mandate over the eastern part. After the Second World War, both became United Nations Trust Territories. In 1945, the French zone gained the right to send three representatives to the French parliament.

  In 1956, French Togoland became an autonomous republic within the French Union, though France kept control of defence, foreign relations and finances. A year later, the residents of British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast, as part of the new nation of Ghana. Only the French-run east remained to become Togo.

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• 3. Coups and One Party

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  The Togolese Republic was proclaimed on the 27th of April 1960. The first president, Sylvanus Olympio, took office after the 1961 election with 100 per cent of the vote. The opposition had boycotted that election. The constitution was adopted on the 9th of April 1961, making the National Assembly the supreme legislative body.

  In December 1961, opposition leaders were arrested and accused of plotting against the government. A decree then dissolved the opposition parties. Olympio also tried to loosen France's grip by seeking cooperation with the United States, the United Kingdom and West Germany. He turned away French soldiers, demobilised after the Algerian War, who wanted places in the Togolese army.

  On the 13th of January 1963, a group of soldiers under Sergeant Gnassingbé Eyadéma assassinated Olympio. A state of emergency was declared. The military handed power to an interim government led by Nicolas Grunitzky, who was elected president that May. His aims were to ease the divisions between north and south, write a new constitution and introduce a multiparty system.

  Exactly four years after Olympio's death, on the 13th of January 1967, Eyadéma overthrew Grunitzky in a bloodless coup and took the presidency himself. He founded the Rally of the Togolese People party and banned all other parties. In November 1969, a one-party system was formally introduced. Eyadéma was re-elected in 1979 and 1986. A privatisation programme began in 1983, and other parties were allowed again in 1991.

  In 1993, the European Union froze its partnership with Togo, describing Eyadéma's re-election in 1993-1998 and 2003 as a seizure of power. Freedom House labelled Togo "Not Free" from 1972 to 1998 and again from 2002 to 2006. In April 2004, talks in Brussels between the European Union and Togo explored restoring cooperation.

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• 4. The Landing in Benin

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  Fambaré Ouattara Natchaba was aboard an Air France plane, returning from Paris, when Togo's borders were shut. It was early February 2005. Eyadéma had died of a heart attack on Saturday, the 5th of February. Under the constitution, Natchaba, as president of the parliament, should have become president. A presidential election was due within 60 days.

  Instead, the Togolese army, the Forces Armées Togolaises, closed the borders and forced his plane to land in Benin. With that engineered vacuum, parliament removed the clause demanding an election. It declared that Eyadéma's son, Faure Gnassingbé, would hold office for the rest of his father's term. He was sworn in on the 7th of February.

  The African Union called the takeover a military coup d'état. The United Nations also applied pressure, and France was the one major voice that did not condemn it. Some African leaders backed the move, including Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. Their support opened a rift inside the African Union.

  Inside Togo, the opposition's anger boiled over into riots and uprisings, mainly in the south. In the town of Aného, reports described a civilian uprising followed by a massacre by government troops. The United Nations counted up to 400 dead. Around 40,000 Togolese fled to neighbouring countries.

  On the 25th of February, Gnassingbé resigned and agreed to hold an election. He then accepted his party's nomination for the April vote. On the 24th of April 2005, official results gave him over 60 per cent against Emmanuel Bob-Akitani of the Union des Forces du Changement. Fraud was suspected, since neither domestic nor foreign observers oversaw the count.

  Gnassingbé was sworn in on the 3rd of May 2005. The European Union suspended aid in support of the opposition's claims. The African Union and the United States, by contrast, called the vote "reasonably fair". In June, Gnassingbé named an opposition leader, Edem Kodjo, as prime minister.

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• 5. Ballots and Protests

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  In October 2007, legislative elections finally took place after several postponements. They used proportional representation, which let the sparsely populated north seat as many members of parliament as the crowded south. The president's party won a majority, with the Union des Forces du Changement second. Accusations of vote rigging followed, even with a European Union observer mission present.

  On the 3rd of December 2007, Komlan Mally became prime minister. He resigned on the 5th of September 2008. In March 2010, Gnassingbé won re-election with 61 per cent against Jean-Pierre Fabre, who was backed by an opposition coalition called FRAC. Observers noted "procedural errors", and the opposition refused to recognise the result.

  In May 2010, the opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio announced a power-sharing deal with the government, which gave his party eight ministerial posts. In June 2012, electoral reforms sent protesters onto the streets of Lomé for days. They wanted a return to the 1992 constitution, which had limited presidential terms. In July that year, the prime minister Gilbert Houngbo resigned, and the commerce minister Kwesi Ahoomey-Zunu replaced him. Security forces also raided the home of Fabre.

  Gnassingbé won a third term in April 2015. In 2017, anti-government protests erupted, and the United Nations condemned the crackdown by security forces. The foreign minister of The Gambia, Ousainou Darboe, had to issue a correction after saying Gnassingbé should resign.

  In February 2020, Gnassingbé won a fourth term with about 72 per cent of the vote. His closest challenger, the former prime minister Agbeyome Kodjo, took 18 per cent. The opposition alleged fraud. On the 4th of May 2020, the day after the swearing-in, Bitala Madjoulba, who commanded a military battalion, was found dead in his office. Major General Kadangha Abalo Felix was later prosecuted over the assassination and a "conspiracy against the internal security of the state".

  By then the Gnassingbé family had held power since 1967, which made it Africa's longest-lasting dynasty. In March 2024, Gnassingbé presented a new constitution. It moved Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system. The president became a mostly ceremonial figure with a four-year term, down from five and renewable once. The prime minister's post was renamed President of the Council of Ministers.

  Parliament approved the text in April, and it was adopted on the 6th of May 2024. The reform took effect on the 3rd of May 2025, with the country's first indirect presidential election. Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové, aged nearly 86, was unanimously elected president. Gnassingbé became president of the Council of Ministers, a six-year post that can be renewed indefinitely.

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• 6. Many Peoples

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  About 40 ethnic groups live in Togo. The Ewe, concentrated in the south, are the largest at 32 per cent of the population. In the north, the Kabye make up 22 per cent. The Ouatchis account for 14 per cent, and the Tchokossi of Mango for about 8 per cent. Some treat the Ewe and Ouatchis as one people, though the French who studied both considered them distinct.

  According to the Adele's oral tradition, the deity Ouroubwaré lowered four men and three women from the sky into the village of Dibemkpa. They brought pottery, spinning, basketry, forging and weaving. Adele settlements are known for round, windowless houses with thatched roofs held up by wooden posts outside the walls. Dibemkpa still holds many archaeological remains.

  The Akebou live on a plateau in the Atakora mountains, reached by road from Atakpamé to Badou. Their early villages were independent, each keeping shrines to its own protective deities. Ewe migrants led by a figure called Aké or Eké arrived in the late 18th century and settled near Lonfo. A second wave in the late 19th century founded Djakpodji. The Anyanga arrived after conflicts in the plains, and the Ntribou came fleeing Ashanti raids.

  To govern such a mix, the Akebou set up a central chieftaincy at Lonfo. Its dry hilltop and stone-walled palace stood apart from the forested villages, a place meant for leadership rather than daily life. Oral accounts recall three chiefs, ending with Akountsou, whose reign closed amid local resistance. The stone ruins still stand, and people pour libations in memory of the chiefs.

  The Akposso tell of an ancestor named Ida, who founded the fortified hilltop site of Agbogboli between the Logbo and Haito mountains. Their villages were run by elders with mainly ritual authority, and no overarching chief existed until the colonial era brought the role of awli. What united them was the cult of the deity Kolissa, guardian of the fonio harvest festival known as Ovazau.

  The Bogo, also called Ahlon, number about 6,000 people in the valleys of Danyi. Three clans share power: the Boloè hold the chieftaincy, the Bonoè keep the regalia, and the Bougli supply warriors. Only the Issassoumè, the original landowners, can grant the sacred clay used to install a chief.

  The Ntrubo are present in Togo in just two small villages, Diguinge and Abosomkope. They speak Delo, a language of the Tem group, despite living far from other Tem speakers. That puzzle hints that the mountains here once held one continuous belt of settlements, later reshaped by migration.

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• 7. Faith, Language and Craft

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  Portuguese Catholic missionaries brought Christianity to the coast from the middle of the 15th century. Protestantism came in the second half of the 19th century, when a hundred missionaries of the Bremen Missionary Society were sent to the coastal areas of Togo and Ghana. Togo's Protestants became known as "Brema", a corruption of Bremen. When German missionaries had to leave after the First World War, the Ewe Evangelical Church gained early autonomy.

  The World Factbook in 2023 gave 42.3 per cent of Togolese as Christian, 14 per cent as Muslim and 36.9 per cent as followers of indigenous beliefs. A 2012 US government report noted that many Christians and Muslims still perform indigenous practices. Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism are recognised by the state. Other groups must register as religious associations, and almost 900 applications were pending at the start of 2021.

  Ethnologue lists 39 languages in Togo, and French is the only official one. It is used in schools, the legislature, media, administration and commerce. In 1975, Ewe and Kabiye were designated national languages, meaning they are promoted in formal education and used in the media. Ewe also serves as a language of wider communication in the south, while Tem works as a trade language in some northern towns. In 2022 Togo joined the Commonwealth, and Foreign Minister Robert Dussey hoped this would give Togolese citizens a chance to learn English.

  Ewe-Mina religious practice centres on the creator god Mawu and the associated vodun. Among the Kabye, the Evala wrestling rite marks initiation. In Glidji, the Guin community welcomes the new year with the Epé-Ekpé ceremony, called the "taking of the stone".

  Among the Ewe, twin statuettes called venavi honour and memorialise twins. Carvers in the Kloto and Kpalimé tradition are known for "marriage chains", in which two figures are linked by rings cut from a single block of wood. Weavers at Bafilo make ceremonial garments. Wax-print cloth, known as pagne, matters for ceremonies and as a marker of taste and status. Women traders called the Nana Benz shaped its designs and spread it.

  Basketball is Togo's "second most practiced sport". At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Benjamin Boukpeti won bronze in the K-1 slalom. That made Togo the first African nation to win an Olympic medal in canoeing.

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• 8. Land and Livelihoods

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  Mont Agou, at 986 metres, is the highest point in Togo. The Mono River, running north to south for 400 kilometres, is the longest. The coast along the Gulf of Guinea measures only 56 kilometres, a line of lagoons and sandy beaches backed by marshes and mangroves. Inland, hills fill the centre, and rolling savannah covers the north.

  Temperatures average 23 degrees Celsius on the coast and rise to about 30 in the drier north. Three ecoregions meet here: Eastern Guinean forests, Guinean forest-savannah mosaic and West Sudanian savannah. At least five parks and reserves protect the land, among them Fazao Malfakassa National Park and Koutammakou.

  Agriculture is called the "backbone" of the economy. It produced 28.2 per cent of GDP in 2012 and employed 49 per cent of working people in 2010. Coffee, cocoa and peanuts together bring in roughly 30 per cent of export earnings, and cotton is a cash crop. Cassava, jasmine rice, maize and millet are also grown.

  Beneath the farmland lie phosphates. Togo holds the fourth-largest phosphate deposits in the world, and production reaches 2.1 million tons a year. Mining generated about 33.9 per cent of GDP in 2012. Gold production in 2015 stood at 16 metric tons.

  On the 12th of January 1994, the currency was devalued by 50 per cent, which renewed structural adjustment after the strife of earlier years. A few years later, lack of aid and depressed cocoa prices cut GDP by 1 per cent in 1998, before growth resumed in 1999.

  Togo's roads total about 11,734 kilometres, and only 1,794 kilometres of them are paved. In Lomé, motorcycle taxis called moto-taxis weave through congested streets, and they are cheaper than regular taxis. The railway network covers 568 kilometres on narrow gauge track. Water transport is limited to about 50 kilometres on the Mono River, so the Port of Lomé carries the country's trade.

  Lomé's main airport, officially named Gnassingbé Eyadéma International Airport, opened a new terminal in 2016 with a US $150 million investment. It tripled capacity to up to 2 million passengers a year. ASKY Airlines, founded in 2010, flies from there to more than 30 destinations across Africa. In March 2024, a new carrier called Togo Airline made its inaugural flight from the same airport.

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