Togo’s Constitutional Coup and the African Struggle for Dignity: A Call for Revolutionary Solidarity

In June and July 2025, Togo witnessed renewed demands from its youth for a democratic order, improved livelihood conditions that uphold the dignity of ordinary Togolese, and an end to state-engineered repression that has accompanied protests aimed at a better Togo. As the Togolese express dissatisfaction with the political, economic, and social conditions of the country through mass action, the brute force of the state continues to manifest - imprisoning many who are presumed to be key voices in the June 6th Movement.^[1] Similar to the 2005 and 2017 protests, the Togolese regime has responded with deadly force, murdering its own citizens in an effort to suppress dissent and stifle calls for transformation in the management of the country. 

Even as the Faure regime employs these repressive tactics, it simultaneously serves as ECOWAS’ mediator between the bloc and the Alliance of Sahel States. Within the African Union, the regime acts as an envoy in the peace discussions between the DRC and Rwanda following the resurgence of the March 23 Movement (M23) in eastern DRC.^[2] 

Meanwhile, Lome is scheduled to host the 9th Pan African Congress and the fourth on the African continent. Togo also remains a key ally of France even as French influence in West Africa wanes, marked most clearly by the expulsion of French military forces from the Sahel region and Senegal.

The story of Togo today is not simply one of a country in crisis, it is the echo of a continent’s betrayal and a people’s unfinished struggle for liberation. It is a mirror held up to every African who has ever wondered how power persists in the hands of so few for so long, while the masses suffer the indignities of silence, poverty, and fear. And in this moment of upheaval, the Togolese people, especially the youth and the working class, have chosen defiance over despair.

In April 2024, President Faure Gnassingbé who has ruled since 2005 and inherited power from his father, Eyadéma Gnassingbé, who himself seized power in 1967, abolished presidential elections altogether. This was no mere amendment; it was a calculated constitutional coup. Faure did not just rig the rules; he rewrote the game entirely. By appointing himself President of the Council of Ministers, he effectively ensured that no Togolese citizen would ever again elect their head of state. This is a monarchy by another name. It is a dictatorship by design.

But it must also be said plainly: this is class war.

The Faure regime is not merely a political dynasty; it is a ruling class entrenched in power to protect the interests of foreign capital, comprador elites, and the tiny local bourgeoisie that thrives on the back of the suffering majority. It is a system where wealth is siphoned to fund presidential jets, while students study under leaking roofs. A system where ministers drive luxury vehicles, while market women sell tomatoes under the scorching sun, and where workers are paid crumbs for the labour that keeps the country functioning. In this system, political oppression and economic exploitation are two sides of the same coin.

The events of June 2025, sparked by the brutal arrest and torture of a young artist, Aamron,  were more than protests against a regime. They were uprisings by a people tired of being poor, silenced, and invisible. These were youth who have no jobs, who have never voted in a free election, and who have seen their parents crushed under the weight of survival. These are the ones Faure’s regime fears the most, not because they are violent, but because they are awakening.

The class war in Togo is brutal, but it is not new. It is the continuation of what began in 1963, when Sylvanus Olympio, the country’s first post-independence president, was assassinated in Africa’s first coup, led by soldiers trained and paid by France. Olympio was seeking to make Togo economically independent, to break away from the CFA franc and from French control. His vision was not just nationalist; it was anti-imperialist and pro-worker. And for that, he was killed.

Since then, Togo has been ruled not by its people, but by a political elite embedded in a global capitalist structure that keeps the country poor and compliant. French multinationals continue to profit from Togo’s phosphate. The World Bank and IMF have dictated policies that crush unions, privatise public goods, and render the working class voiceless. This is not an accident. It is  design.

Yet international institutions, including ECOWAS, continue to offer legitimacy to the Gnassingbé regime. They say nothing when peaceful protesters are arrested. They pretend not to see when opposition leaders are tortured. But they speak loudly when soldiers in Burkina Faso or Mali or Niger overthrow corrupt presidents. The message is clear: protect regimes that protect capital.

We must not fall for it. We must name it.

ECOWAS has become a tool of the ruling class; a club of presidents protecting themselves. It is not a bloc of the African people. It is not a vehicle of working-class solidarity. Its silence on Togo is proof enough.

What then must we do?

First, we must understand that this is not just a Togolese crisis. It is an African crisis. The borders that separate us are colonial fictions. The suffering of a Togolese worker is the suffering of a Ghanaian worker. The silencing of a Togolese youth is the silencing of a Senegalese youth. Our conditions are similar because our enemy is the same: a ruling class committed to exploitation and control.

Second, we must act. The people of Togo are not begging. They are rising. Ghana, Togo’s western neighbour, must do more than observe. The country must draw from the ongoing restoration of democratic hopes of its peoples to support calls in Togo for the following:

• The restoration of the 1992 Constitution.

• The immediate release of all political prisoners.

• A transitional government committed to dismantling the apparatus of repression.

• Pan-African solidarity led not by states, but by the masses, movements, students, trade unions, and workers.

Third, we must unite on the basis of class. Nkrumah warned that neocolonialism would come wearing African faces but serving foreign interests.^[3] He was right. The struggle today is not merely for democracy in the abstract, it is for democratic control over wealth, for dignity in labour, for ownership of land and resources, for freedom of expression, and for the right to organise.

This is why the Togolese uprising matters.

It is not about opposition politics. It is about working people reclaiming agency. When young people take to the streets without leaders, when workers strike despite arrests, when artists become the voice of the voiceless—that is class struggle in motion.

To those who say Togo is too small to matter, remember: revolutions do not begin in empires. They begin in places where people have nothing left to lose.

Togo may be the spark. But Africa is the fire.

We must fight for Togo as we fought for Burkina Faso, for Guinea, for Congo. We must link arms across borders, not in conferences but in common struggle.

Let no one say Africa is not ready for freedom.

Let no one claim that these uprisings are chaos.

Let no one forget that our future lies not in presidents but in the power of the people.

And to the Faure regime, to ECOWAS, to the AU, to the global order that protects oppression, we say:

Your time is up.

The people are rising.

Forward ever.

Power to the people.

Justice for Togo.

Victory to the working class.

One Africa. United and free.

Ernesto Yeboah is a revolutionary Pan-African activist, political organiser, and the founding Leader of the Economic Fighters League in Ghana.  Known for his uncompromising stance against neo-colonialism, corruption, and imperialism, he has emerged as a leading voice in Africa’s grassroots liberation struggle. His activism, rooted in the legacies of Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara, champions radical economic justice and a total re-imagination of African governance. Whether on the streets, in academia, or the courtroom, he continues to fight for a united, sovereign, and self-determined Africa.

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