Togo

Main article: Africa

Colonial dependence on France

For 2023, Togo is in colonial dependence on France, which exercises control over all significant processes in politics and economics. For more on specific instruments of influence, see French Foreign Policy.

Population

Main article: Population of Africa

Migration

2021: Net outflow over 4 years

Marriages

Allowed to have more than one spouse

Overweight

Mortality

Traffic safety

Economy

ECOWAS membership

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional organization established in 1975 to strengthen economic cooperation between West African countries .

GDP $668 per person

Currency: CFA franc

Main article: Frank CFA (CFA)

Foreign trade

2023:50% of wheat supplies come from Russia and Ukraine

R&D

2020: R&D expenses - $27 million

Togo IT Market

2022: More than 1 start-up

Agriculture

2019: Low use of pesticides in agriculture

Consumption

Meat

2023: Fish consumption is higher than meat consumption

Cereals

2019: Low rice consumption: 21.1 kg per person per year

Vegetables

2018: Vegetable consumption - 24 kg per capita

Power

Electrification

Energy carriers

2020: Energy consumption per capita

and

Education

Percentage of people who can read

Health care

2021: Maternity leave

in

2020

Duration of guaranteed paid sick leave from 1 to 2.9 months

Part of the population defecates on the street

Crime

Prisons

2022: The minimum age for children to be jailed is 13

2018: Number of prisoners per 100 thousand citizens

Sport

2022: The most popular sport is football

in

History

2024: Draft new constitution with rejection of direct presidential elections to extend Gnassingbe's powers with the support of France

The Parliament of Togo in April 2024 approved a draft new constitution that turns the country into a parliamentary republic. With this step, the current head of state, Faure Gnassingbe, gets the opportunity to extend his term of office by canceling direct presidential elections.

Before that, the government postponed indefinitely parliamentary elections previously scheduled for April 20.

The decision displeased the opposition, which has planned rallies for the coming days. The previous time, the rallies were disrupted, since they did not receive wide support, and the gendarmerie cordoned off the places allocated for them. The actions of local authorities to extend the terms of government in recent years have not met with widespread condemnation in the community.

The power of the Gnassingbe clan, which has been going on for more than 50 years, is unabated.

The Gnassingbe clan comes from the Kabye tribe that inhabits the north of the country. They retain power through authoritarian methods and the active exploitation of traditional voodoo beliefs.

The opposition is concentrated mainly in the south, and belongs to the Ewe, Aja and Mina peoples. A few centuries ago, they sold to Europeans for a pittance of slaves recruited from their neighbors, including kabyas.

The legacy and cultivation of guilt for the transatlantic slave trade is one of the key motivations of local politics. For the population, the Wooduist deity Chamba, who personifies all those buried far from their ancestors and their land, is still of great importance.

French support for a loyal regime also plays an important role. In Togo, a new military base is being prepared France on which a contingent from can deploy. Children

Togo is at this time a priority region for the French authorities, seeking to preserve the remnants of influence and access to the Gulf of Guinea.

The ECOWAS countries did not react in any way to the constitutional coup, unlike the same Niger where the pro-Russian government came.

The combination of these factors allows the Gnassingbe clan to maintain confident control over the country, despite problems with corruption, infrastructure and the economy.

2019

Freemasons' conflict with the Catholic Church

In the Republic of Togo, the funeral of former Minister of Economy and Finance Elom Emil Dadzi, who died on December 11, is being vividly discussed. On December 27, 2019, the body of an influential Catholic and a sponsor of the Catholic community was not allowed to be buried by Archbishop Lome Denis Amuzu Dzakpa in the metropolitan church of Cristo Risorto due to the fact that the deceased belonged to the Freemasons.

The clash of local Freemasonry with the archdiocese is an alarming symptom, exacerbated by the years-long internal crisis that the Grand Lodge of Togo is experiencing at this time. The election in September 2019 of Iñas Anani Klomega as Grand Master split the Togolese elite and the ruling Gnassingbe family in the country since 1967. A number of high-ranking members of the brotherhood spoke out against his candidacy - from the prosecutor general to the chief of the gendarmerie.

In Togo, Masons appeared before independence, in 1953, and became the most elitist brotherhood, uniting most of the most senior members of the government. For 2020, the ruling Union for the Republic (formerly the Unification of the Togolese People) for a long time remained mainly a Rosicrucian structure, while influential enough to hold major international events (including public ones) at its headquarters. The largest of these was the August 15-16, 1980 convention, which drew 2,919 delegates from around the world.

Local organizations operate in the country, the most famous of which is the now deceased occult Brotherhood of the Cosmic Heart, founded by a dissident Rosicrucian and incorporating the practices of the Peda people in southern Togo. At another level, however, Catholic, Islamic, Protestant, and Wooduist structures acting as parallel powers and mediators between pro-government forces and the opposition have sufficient influence to lobby for their interests and occasionally oppose the Masonic and Rosicrucian establishment.

Pirates abduct four sailors from Greek vessel off Togo coast

On November 4, 2019, pirates attacked a Greek oil tanker 18 km from the port of Lome, took hostages and fled, follows from a message from the Greek authorities.

The two missing crew members are Filipinos, one is Greek and the other is Georgian. One guard was injured in the attack.

1963: Assassination of the first French-assisted President Olympio for attempting to enter his own currency

The financial situation of the new independent Togo was very unstable, so in order to get out of the situation, the first president of Togo, Olympio, decided to withdraw the French colonial money FCFA (franc for the French African colonies) from circulation and issue his own currency.

On 13 January 1963, three days after he began printing his own currency, a force of illiterate soldiers supported by France killed the first elected president of newly independent Africa.

The murder of Olympio was committed by a former sergeant of the French Foreign Legion named Etienne Gnassingbé, who allegedly received a reward of $612 from the local French embassy for the work of a killer.

France forces Togo to pay off debt for "benefits derived from French colonization"

Silvanus Olympio, the first president of the Republic of Togo, found an intermediate solution with the French.

He did not want his country to remain a French dominion, so he refused to sign de Gaulle's proposed agreements on cooperation in the military and economic spheres, but agreed to pay France an annual debt for the so-called benefits received by Togo from French colonization.

This was the only condition that the French did not destroy the country before leaving as they did in Guinea. However, the amount calculated by France was so large that the compensation of the so-called "colonial debt" amounted to almost 40% of the country's budget in 1963.

1914

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