- Calling Faure Gnassingbé to statesmanship
Street protests over the past three months, in which dozens were killed, have brought Togo’s political crisis no closer to a resolution. Rather than heed the protesters challenging the 50-year rule of the Gnassingbé family, President Faure Gnassingbé, who habitually blocks mobile and internet access to thwart their capacity to organise and mobilise, seems more concerned about the presidential election debacle in Liberia.
That is a measure of his contempt for the massed opposition to his thinly-veiled ambition to perpetuate himself in office and in power.
Most of the protests have taken place in the capital, Lomé, and the northern city of Sokode, and have now spread to the rest of the country, unlike in the past when they were concentrated in the capital. Gnassingbé will do well to acknowledge the national character of the opposition to his continued rule.
He has held office since his father, who seized power in a coup d’état and ruled for nearly four decades, died in 2005. In violation of the constitution, the military swore Gnassingbé to power, instead of the speaker of the National Assembly. In the face of international pressure, he resigned and stood for election on the platform of Togo’s ruling party. His victory in that election triggered widespread protests that were brutally suppressed. Some 500 people were killed.
In 2010 and again in 2015 Gnassingbé cemented his hold on power in elections, the results of which were hotly disputed. Another election is not due until 2020.
The multi-party coalition and civil society organisations are demanding that he stand down and return to the 1992 Constitution which stipulates a maximum of two presidential terms of five years each. To appease them, Gnassingbé sent a bill to the National Assembly last September that would reinstate the two-term limit. The bill has since become law. But the law will take effect only after 2020, which leaves wide open the possibility that Gnassingbé could run in the election and secure two more terms by the means he had employed in previous elections.
Given Gnassingbé’s record, the opposition’s fears cannot be dismissed as alarmist.
If he truly means well, he should move the National Assembly to replace the new law with a forthright enactment that leaves no room for ambiguity and manipulation.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, his strong backer whom Gnassingbé used to relate to as a son, has since withdrawn his support. In an interview with the BBC last September, he urged Gnassingbé to step down “unless he has something new” for the Togolese people.
After 12 years in power, Obasanjo said, Gnassingbé “must have exhausted whatever ideas he has,” adding in a pointed rebuke to African leaders who cling desperately to power, that “if you don’t leave office, office will leave you.”
We do not know what visiting Côte d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara and his host, President Muhammadu Buhari, discussed apropos of the situation in Togo. But Ouattara’s remark at a news conference was a reassuring indication that the subject featured in their talks.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Togo was a principal sponsor and has been an active member-state, should invoke its conflict-resolution machinery to mediate in the crisis and nudge Gnassingbé toward declaring that he will not be a candidate in the 2020 election.
Too many Togolese citizens have died or fled into exile in the self-perpetuation schemes of the dynasty that has ruled Togo for 50 years. Faure Gnassingbé should be encouraged to follow the path of statesmanship and patriotism.
