1963 Togolese coup d'état

The 1963 Togolese coup d'état was a military coup that occurred in the country of Togo on 13 January 1963. The coup leaders (notably Emmanuel Bodjolle, Étienne Eyadéma and Kléber Dadjo) took over government buildings, arrested most of the cabinet, and assassinated Togo's first President, Sylvanus Olympio outside the American embassy in Lomé. The coup leaders quickly brought Nicolas Grunitzky and Antoine Meatchi, both of whom were exiled political opponents of Olympio, together to form a new government. While the government of Ghana and its President Kwame Nkrumah were implicated in the coup and assassination of Olympio, full investigation was never completed and the international outcry eventually died down. The event was important as the first coup d'état in the French and British colonies of Africa that achieved independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and Olympio is remembered as one of the first heads of state to be assassinated during a military coup in Africa.

Togo had originally been a protectorate of the German colonial empire but was taken by the British and French during World War I. The French and British divided the area administratively with the French taking control in 1922 of the area of present-day Togo. The eastern portion joined the British Gold Coast colony, dividing the Ewe population between British and French colonies. During World War II, the French Vichy government considered the powerful Olympio family of Togo to be pro-British and so many members of that family were arrested, including Sylvanus Olympio who was held for a significant time in a prison in the remote city of Djougou (in present-day Benin). His imprisonment became a key point impacting his future relationships with the French and a metaphor for the need for political and economic independence for Togo which he would use repeatedly in speeches.

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