“When it comes to retaining power and its privileges, the imagination of the people in power rarely lacks resources” (François Mitterrand)
The long reign of Faure Gnassingbé is marked by a procession of villainies. Misappropriation of public funds, financial embezzlement, corruption are the characteristic plagues of his regime. The first years of Faure Gnassingbé were apocalyptic in terms of economic crimes. During the same years, Togo was the most affected by illicit financial flows in the world, reaching a value representing 76.3% of its GDP, 2435.9% of its education budget and 1088.7% of their health budget.
The petty oligarchy had embarked on the race for embezzlement with such frenzy that in 2012 the father’s son was forced to confess the sins of the small group that gravitates around the central core of power: a minority made hands low on all the property and wealth of the country which should go to all Togolese. “When the fewest monopolize resources to the detriment of the greatest number, then a harmful imbalance is established which threatens democracy and progress to its very depths”, he had given the impression of deploring.
But the report was only limited to the diagnosis. Absolutely nothing has been done to discourage those who engage in illicit actions with contempt and take liberties with the public purse. On the contrary, he rather seemed to give them a blank check. Obsessed with lucre, they continue to this day to chip away at taxpayers’ money. Under the intertwining of numerous cases of corruption, pierce the oilgate and the Covidgate, immense scandals of misappropriation of the last public. The prevaricators are in no way worried. On the contrary, they are protected and exempt from the basic duty of accountability. Life goes on.
They can steal, plunder the country, but eyeing the presidential chair is a supreme affront that borders on the crime of lèse-majesté. Yes, state power is considered an eternal family legacy. “My father told me never to let power escape us,” Faure Gnassingbé confided to his supporters following the bloody parenthesis of 2005. Since then, he has multiplied presidential terms endlessly.
Any form of ambition emanating from the entourage is immediately reduced to nothing. The securocrats and other ambitious ones are pushed towards the prison. Many are the barons of the mode which made the painful experiment of it. Suspected of nurturing presidential ambitions, the former large format minister and kingmaker, had been stuck in a scandalous case of fraud, then imprisoned. Today, this former strong man of the executive, whose rise in the circles of power was increasingly frowned upon, is out of order with the regime.
Long before, it was the half-brother Kpatcha who had been neutralized. Sick and cut off from his resources, he has been serving a prison sentence since 2009 in another dark case of an attempt to undermine state security. No longer representing any threat, the other brother can peacefully prolong the enjoyment of power.
The General, man of “PAIY”, considered as the most influential military figure of the regime, has also just fallen by the wayside. Stuck between four walls for several weeks, he is given all kinds of facts and misdeeds. Previously, another securocrat was downright killed. It is whispered that he would have refused to perform basic tasks in connection with the “fraudulent” of 2020.
In Faure Gnassingbé’s Togo, to avoid trouble and have a long life, you have to eat and join the ranks.
Medard Ametepe
Freedom N° 3790 of Thursday March 09, 2023