Dama Dramani

Dama Dramani (born 1944) is a Togolese politician who has been President of the National Assembly of Togo since 2013. He was Secretary-General of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), the ruling party, from 2003 to 2006, and following the 2007 parliamentary election he was President of the RPT Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly.

Dramani, who was born in Manigri, Benin, is a member of the Bassari ethnic group; he is also a half-brother of one of Gnassingbé Eyadéma's wives, Lami. A civil administrator, Dramani was appointed as Director of Equipment and Real Estate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation on August 19, 1980, and then as Director of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Public Health on September 4, 1980. While serving as Regional Commissioner of Dapaong, he was appointed as District Head (chef de conscription) of Lomé on May 26, 1981. He subsequently served as Prefect of Golfe before being appointed as Director of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation on January 27, 1982. In that capacity, Dramani signed the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on behalf of Togo on February 26, 1982. He served for 13 years as Director of State Protocol at the Presidency.

In the March 1999 parliamentary election, Dramani was elected to the National Assembly as the RPT candidate in the Second Constituency of Tchamba Prefecture; he faced no opposition and won the seat with 100% of the vote. He then served in the government as Minister of Trade, Industry, Transport, and the Free Zone until he was excluded from the government that was named on July 29, 2003. At the RPT's Eighth Ordinary Congress in late November 2003, he was elected as Secretary-General of the RPT.

Following the death of President Eyadéma on February 5, 2005, Dramani said that it was "tragic for Togo". Eyadéma's son Fauré Gnassingbé succeeded him as President, but this was succession was widely deemed unconstitutional. Dramani was included as part of a Togolese delegation that travelled to Niamey on February 12 in an attempt to explain and defend Gnassingbé's succession to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which had reacted to it with hostility.

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