Togo’s first elected president, Sylvanus Olympio (L) was ousted in the first military coup I sub-saharan Africa by Military officer, Gnassingbe Eyedema (R)
By Ejiroghene Barrett
On January 13, 1963, Togo earned global notoriety for the murderous end of its visionary leader. The assassination of the president, Sylvanus Olympio the first post-colonial African president to be ousted by a coup, was a moment that shook the continent and beyond.
It was not only a national tragedy but a classic case of the long arm of neo-colonialism, French-style in this case, or Franceafrique. The coup, carried out with surgical precision, was not only a locally bred power coup. It was an international soap, where the looming shadow of French influence cast its outline over Togo’s fragile independence
Olympio, the multilingual London School of Economics educated former Unilever executive, was the very symbol of African independence. Speaker of seven languages, a man of the world, he was rooted solidly on Togolese soil. His victory in 1960, following Togo’s independence from France, was a nationalist romp over Nicolas Grunitzky, a Paris-backed candidate.
Olympio’s dream was an unambiguous one; to chart the course of Togo away from the suffocating embrace of its former colonial master and onto the path of independence and complete sovereignty. He rejected the French franc, opting instead for a national currency pegged to the German Deutsche Mark, a move that signalled his intention to diversify the external alignments of Togo and reduce French economic dominance.
Such ambitions were perilous. The French, accustomed to a sphere of influence stretching from Francophone Africa, viewed Olympio’s policies as threatening. The abandonment of the franc was not merely an economic decision. It was political, a claim of independence that shook the very foundation of French political, military, and economic domination of its old colonies.
This network, as François-Xavier Verschave famously described in his 1998 book, La Françafrique, the longest scandal of the Republic, was a web of corruption, covert operations, and paternalistic control, designed to maintain French hegemony under the guise of partnership.
The path to Olympio’s downfall was cleared in the months leading up to the coup. His determination to remove former French colonial soldiers from the Togolese army out of a desire to construct a new national army unencumbered by colonial baggage incensed a clique of disgruntled ex-soldiers led by Sergeant Étienne Eyadéma. Eyadéma, who would become the iron-fisted dictator of Togo for nearly four decades, was a product of the French military hierarchy, schooled and shaped by the very forces Olympio was attempting to escape.
In the early hours of January 13, 1963, these soldiers, driven by resentment and possibly driven by external sources, attacked the presidential palace. Olympio, in a desperate bid for sanctuary, fled to the courtyard of the American Embassy, where he was refused asylum. The American ambassador, not having a key to the embassy, telephoned his French counterpart, Henri Mazoyer, an action that some historians have argued marked Olympio’s end. Moments later, Eyadéma and his men caught up with the president and executed him in cold blood.
The aftermath of the coup was swift and telling. The French government’s recognition of the new regime, rather than denouncing its violent putsch, even signing a military assistance pact, was clear proof of complicity rather than coincidence. The fact that the French military advisers did not act to stop the coup, despite being in Togo at the time, also fuelled suspicions.
As described by Pascal Krop in The Franco-African Genocide, the French secret services had been provoking the plotters, Commander Georges Maîtrier, Olympio’s own security advisor, allegedly taking a lead role. Those accusations, while difficult to prove definitively, are part of a general cycle of French intervention in African politics, a pattern that ran well into the twenty-first century.
The Eyadéma coup was one of the first of a succession of many military coups to bedevil Africa during the 1960s and beyond, decades marked by instability in newly independent nations and opportunism by former colonial powers.
Olympio’s murder shocked the continent. It showed Africa’s new leaders that independence came with deadly risks. In Togo, tensions ran deeper than many realised. The southern elite, including Olympio, had long dominated while northerners felt shut out. This bitterness grew until others weaponised it. Foreign interests added fuel to the fire. When divisions turned violent, Eyadéma saw his chance and seized power for himself.
The 1963 coup is not just a tale of backroom betrayals and bloodshed. It is also about the quiet defiance of memory. Gilchrist Olympio, the son left behind, has carried his father’s ghost for a lifetime. Sixty years of knocking on courtroom doors, demanding answers that never come. Sixty years of watching promises of an independent investigation not kept. Justice stays distant, yet he refuses to stop fighting. No official inquiry has followed, even after constant demands from citizens and groups.
This inaction shows how perpetrators operated without fear of consequences. Across Togo, people remember. The coup stands as proof of how fragile independence can be, and how colonial history still shapes the present.
The Françafrique concept, as eloquently described by Verschave and others, provides a term to examine these actions. It is a term that encapsulates the post-colonial paradox. Only flags and anthems changed. True self-rule never arrived. French soldiers stayed in their barracks. Contracts kept African economies tied to Paris. Schoolchildren still memorised Molière. The old colonial master simply found new ways to pull the strings. The coup laid bare this reality. Instead of a clean separation, what emerged was a carefully managed relationship, with former colonial powers continuing to set boundaries.
Françafrique’s shadow grows shorter each year. A younger generation of African leaders and activists no longer accepts the old ways of doing things. The growing opposition to France in its former West African strongholds shows how what once bound nations together now drives them apart.
Looking back at Olympio’s slaying, a major turning point in history, we can see just how deeply it shaped Africa and the world. The January 13 coup revealed what would become a recurring nightmare for newly independent states. True sovereignty meant more than political declarations, it demanded constant struggle.
Governments struggled to reconcile domestic needs with foreign pressures, forever weighed down by colonial inheritances. History did not fade, it simply reshaped itself. This narrative commands examination not merely as historical record, but for what it reveals about today’s struggles over control, authority and true independence.
Olympio’s enduring influence proves how determination outlasts even the darkest opposition. Though his plans for Togo were brutally interrupted, they still drive those fighting for an Africa free from foreign domination.
