Surprise! The Gnassingbes did it again! 40 years in power and counting!
The CENI published the “election” results and Faure Gnassingbe, son of  Togos late dictator apparently won by a landslide. To celebrate this victory he had a couple hundred protesters in Lomé teargassed. The military is in the streets of Lomé, making sure no  sore [...]

Today is election day in Togo. The borders are closed, the military patrols the streets and 6000 polling stations are open across the west African nation. Fraud and violence marred the last election in 2005, so several hundred international observers have been deployed across the country. The hope is that this presence of observers can [...]

On March 4, voters in Togo for the first time ever will have a choice between two young-ish leaders, as a new generation of politicians is slowly emerging from the shadows of the aging post-colonial crop of politicians. At least they are supposed to be able to choose. Considering that the election committee that oversees [...]

It was bad enough when the convoy of  Togo’s national football team was machine-gunned by a rebel army in Angola’s Cabinda Province as the team was traveling to the Cup of African Nations. Two staff members and the Angolan driver died. Several are still in the hospital and it seems clear that the whole team [...]

2010 should be a great year for African football, but so far it has come off to a bad start, after Friday’s attack on the bus of Togo’s National Team in Angola’s Cabinda Province. The team was traveling to the CAN venue in Cabinda City in a bus with a police escort. The convoy was [...]

Congratulations to Ghana’s U20 football team!
At the U20 Worldcup final in Cairo on Friday Ghana beat 4-time champion Brazil despite being one player down due to a red card in the 37th Minute. Neither team scored during regulation time and overtime, and so penalty kicks decided this game. This is the first time Ghana won [...]

Not sure if this is good news or bad news: Trafigura, the company responsible for the Probo Koala toxic waste scandal 3 years ago, settled with the lawyers representing the Ivorian victims for $46 Million – that’s a little over $1,500 per person.
Yes, that’s real money for most folks in Cote d’Ivoire – a bit [...]

Next Tuesday, on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN General Assembly, President Obama will meet with several African heads of state for a working breakfast. According to (fr) the Togolese state news website RepublicOfTogo.com, President Faure Gnassingbe has been invited, too. Apparently the criterion for the invitation is troop contributions to UN peacekeeping. [...]

The World Togolese Foundation (WTF) will hold its first conference on Sept 12 in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). I find this particularly interesting because on our last trip to Togo we had many discussions with folks in our village Yikpa about how to rally the diaspora to help the development of the village. Apparently one  Emmanuel [...]

The BBC reports:
US President Barack Obama is to make a week-long foreign tour in July that will include Russia, Italy and Ghana, the White House says.
…

In Ghana, the White House said Mr Obama and his wife looked forward “to strengthening the US relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa”.
During the visit [...]

While we were in Togo two weeks ago, apparently Kpatcha Gnassingbé, a half brother of the president tried to overthrow the current regime and was arrested a few days after the attempted coup. Today, the official Togolese government news website announced more arrests in relation to this attempted coup.
On Easter Sunday, April 12, troops loyal [...]

Today Togo celebrated 49 years of independence from its former colonial power France. According to the government news site RepublicofTogo.com, this was the first time there was a substantial celebratory event at the national government level. For many years under Gnassingbe Eyadema’s rule it was forbidden to celebrate this day. Only the 13 January was [...]

We’re back at home. After 3 weeks in Ghana and Togo, we undertook the last leg of our trip on Friday – from Accra via New York back home to Durham. The guy who’d rented us his Bimmer came to pick us up at 6 AM and took us to Kotoka Int’l Airport. Like so [...]

For almost two weeks Laura and I and the kids have been back to Yikpa – the village in Togo where Laura and I met all these years ago. Our visit is going very well. Our reception was just amazing! We had almost two days of celebration, including a formal welcome with a sacrifice of [...]

We made it! We arrived in Accra, Ghana, yesterday at 8AM. Uncle E.K. picked us up and drove us to the house we’re staying in while we’re in Accra. It’s HOT – no rains yet (that’s a problem for the farmers!) but the house does have A/C. We use the cooling sparingly because we need to [...]

Yovo is going back to the village! In a week from now, we will be on our most exciting, most anticipated family trip yet, back to Yikpa – the village where Laura and I met all these years ago.
Next weekend, we’ll fly directly from New York to Accra. In Accra we’ll be staying at a [...]

After five years of civil war (2002 – 07) and a year of relative peace, it appears that Côte d’Ivoire is getting back on track to stability, democracy and eventually, relative prosperity. In the 80’s, the West African nation was still one of the continent’s successes. In those days, many of my Togolese friends dreamed [...]

A close presidential election in Ghana has put the West African nation’s electoral system to the test, but in the end the opposition candidate John Atta Mills, 64, won by a very narrow margin. There were allegations of fraud on several sides, and the runoff election in the Tain region had to be re-done due [...]

German Vice-chancellor and foreign minister Steinmeier is in Togo for talks with Faure Gnassingbe. He appears to be following the new EU strategy of engagement with Gnassingbe, whereby they hope to win concessions on the development of a more functional democracy in Togo. Good luck with that.
Also, I cannot stand these idiotic descriptions of Togo [...]

Congratulations to the team from Egypt for defending the title in the Cup of African Nations against the team from Cameroon (1-0). The host Ghana came in third place on Saturday, defeating Ivory Coast 0-1.