Faure Gnassingbé has run Togo since taking over from his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma in 2005...
Some trace Faure's sympathy for the Niamey junta to his personal history as the successor to his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma a putschist who seized power in 1967 then held on to it with the backing of the army and police running a one-party state until 1993 when he made some superficial gestures towards political liberalism...
But Bolloré still faced obstacles chiefly Jacques Dupuydauby an equally well-connected French entrepreneur who had used his connections to the strongly Africa-focused French President Jacques Chirac to secure links to President Gnassingbé Eyadéma...
Debbasch has acted as the right-hand man of several Francophone African leaders but ended up settling down with President Gnassingbé Eyadéma for the last part of his career and life counselling him on how to best resist western calls for reform while extracting bribes from foreign businesses...
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When his father President Gnassingbé Eyadéma died suddenly his father's political allies sneaked him into office...
He succeeded to the presidency in 2005 on the sudden death of his father the French army veteran Gnassingbé Eyadéma whose one-party rule was scarred by violence by the security services the breakdown of relations with donors and economic decay at a time when neighbouring more democratic countries were enjoying steady growth...
He succeeded his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma who had ruled Togo since 1967 on his death in 2005...
Togo hosted the Lomé Convention in 1975 but then found itself shut out of the Cotonou process when its EU aid was suspended after President Gnassingbé Eyadéma won a presidential election in the 2003 which was marked by accusations of fraud and violence (AC Vol 44 No 21 Lomé abstention)...
The complaint centres around involvement by the Havas PR guru Jean-Philippe Dorent in the election of President Faure Gnassingbé after he succeeded his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma in 2005...
'Faure must go…50 ans ça suffit' – a reference to the combined time in office of the President and the dictatorship of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma – is the slogan of the Togo Debout campaign which started out by calling for an immediate return to the original 1992 constitution but is rapidly evolving into a demand for the early resignation of the President...
The significance of the 1992 constitution is that it was negotiated on a consensus basis and received massive popular support as the foundation for genuine democracy – until Gnassingbé Eyadéma launched a ferocious crackdown on opponents and changed the rules back in the regime's favour...
On that date in 1963 Gnassingbé Eyadéma shot Olympio dead and four years later took complete power for himself until his death in 2005 as Africa’s longest-serving head of state...
