Ten years after the formal lifting of the embargo by the European Union, Togo knows is marked by a major political crisis and waves of political demonstrations. Yet, in recent years, the country has made tremendous progress economically and socially.
Avenue of Peace. Thus one named one of the entrances connecting the capital to its airport. Impossible to miss the new mosaic frescoes of the walls that line its sidewalks, or the dove that overlooks it. Visibly inspired by the famous French psychologist Émile Coué, urban planners thought it would be enough to "totemize" peace to root it. Good try.
But more is needed to interrupt the cycle of demonstrations that the Togolese street is customary. In Sokodé, in Lomé, by thousands, the protesters go down regularly in the street, eruptive and determined, since they answered the call of the new providential man, Tikpi Atchadam, on August 19th. A festival of violence. Some dead, many injured. But also burned buildings, degraded infrastructure and, more broadly, a social and economic dynamic halted.
The old demons are back, ten years after the lifting of the embargo by the European Union (November 29, 2007) and as the country has begun to change profoundly.
Economic and social progress
The highly regarded Mo Ibrahim Foundation ranks Togo in second place among the best reformers in Africa in the last ten years. And no one can deny that it has changed, according to an economic model built on several pillars: attractiveness to wealth creators, the macroeconomic framework, inclusive finance to fight poverty and out of the informal .
The investor and the tourist who land in Lomé are surprised by the new ultra-modern and secure terminal, where hatched the Asky airline, a successful Togolese-Ethiopian entrepreneurial success. Having become a major regional metropolis, Lomé attracts Beninese and Ghanaians who come willingly to spend the weekend there.
Its transhipment port is in full swing. It hosts the headquarters of several pan-African banks, which do not complain about the business climate. Real progress has been made against corruption and to strengthen control bodies. To reduce poverty, the government has launched programs to support entrepreneurship in rural areas ...
Reforms to achieve But
it takes time for reforms to have their effects. It takes a lot of patience for a young unemployed or underemployed person, moreover, to face the cost of living, to resist the temptation of adventurous "dégagisme". In a country where the median age is 18, the state of seditious growl is therefore almost permanent.
Admittedly, Faure Gnassingbé could have made better use of the relative state of grace that he has enjoyed in recent years, while the volcano was dormant. Created in April 2012, Unir, the new presidential party, waited five years to hold its first congress - October 28th and 29th. Five long years that have not been devoted to structuring the new Togolese citizen.
Five years behind in the exercise of doctrinal refoundation necessary to counter the influence of these generations of opponents who forged their political conscience against the regime of late General Eyadéma and perpetuate their methods with his successor.
"The peace of Ouaga"
It would also have been wise to realize more quickly the promises of constitutional and institutional reforms stemming from the global political agreement signed in 2006 in Burkina Faso.
Great losers of the status quo, the opponents who signed the "peace of Ouaga" played there and have since lost their credibility with their traditionally radical base. By accepting to assume the Republican status of leader of the opposition, Jean Pierre Fabre is also a victim of this disenchantment of which Tikpi Atchadam is the beneficiary.
In the end, Faure Gnassingbe is doomed, despite the self-destructive impulses of his country, which, like Sisyphus, falls in its wake, while it is close to reaching the top of the hill.
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