"We must put an end to the Gnassingbe family's control over the country"

A new figure of the opposition, Tikpi Atchadam wants "a union of action around one and the same objective to bring down the regime".


Interview by Christophe Châtelot (Lomé, Special Envoy)



Unknown to the general public a few weeks ago, the Togolese opponent Tikpi Salifou Atchadam, 50 years old, founder in 2014 of the Pan-African National Party (PNP), came to the political scene at the beginning of the summer. Originally from the north-central part of the country, which until then had been regarded as a preserve of power, he gathered several thousand people at a stadium in Lomé and organized a demonstration on 19 August, which revived a vast protest movement calling for institutional reforms, the declared objective of which was the departure of President Faure Gnassingbé, who succeeded his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma, unchallenged head of state from 1967 until his death in 2005.


The president proposed a constitutional reform limiting to two the number of mandates and restoring the principle of a two-round election. Why is this insufficient?

Tikpi Atchadam The Togolese want to put an end to the Gnassingbé family's domination of the country. The reform amounts to creating - in fact, if not in the text - a monarchical Constitution, since it could present itself in 2020 and 2025 in a context of manipulated elections. But the Togolese have just shown their determination by going out as never before in the streets on August 19 and then on September 6 and 7. All they ask is to live normally as in Benin or Ghana, whereas here there is no education system, health. Eating is problematic.


We do not trust him anymore, even if he says he will not run again in 2020. From now on, we no longer believe in his word. In 2005, he said "I am the man of reforms", then he promised to "no longer shed blood for political reasons", announced "decentralization" and finally "to reconcile the Togolese with themselves ". At the end of the day: nothing.


What we are saying to him is to stop his mandate in 2017, to carry out reforms and to organize early general elections of which he would be the guarantor without participating. We do not want to cut Faure's head, he has an experience that the country may need.


Is he not a prisoner of the regime set up by his father?


He decides everything. But his thirst for power makes him deaf. He inherited Togo as a peasant from his father's field. The barons of the regime are his tenants, they owe him everything, but it is he who has the power. A ten-minute speech is enough to break the cycle of violence that has existed in this country since 1963. If he does, if he renounces power, he goes out the door. The Togolese are ready to forgive. If not, he will be responsible.