Sourou Migan Apithy

Sourou-Migan Marcellin Joseph Apithy
President Sourou Migan Apithy
2nd President of Dahomey
In office January 25, 1964 – November 27, 1965
Preceded by	Christophe Soglo
Succeeded by	Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin
Personal details
Born	(1913-04-08)April 8, 1913 Porto-Novo, Dahomey
Died	December 3, 1989(1989-12-03) (aged 76) Paris, France

Sourou-Migan Marcellin Joseph Apithy (April 8, 1913 – December 3, 1989) was a Beninese political figure most active when his country was known as Dahomey. He arose on a political scene where one's power was dictated by what region in Dahomey one lived in.

Apithy studied at Bordeaux in a Lycée or secondary school. After he completed his studies there, he was accepted at the public Political Science School in Paris where he took courses in commercial studies. He later worked at a French company in Western Africa as an expert accountant. Before his country acquired its independence, beginning 1945, he was part of Dahomey's Constitutive Assembly and was re-elected for a number of terms. When Hubert Maga nominated him to that function, he was also the prime minister of Dahomey (Benin) from 1957 to 1958. By 1960, he had become vice president of the Republic.

He served as the president of Benin between 25 January 1964 and 27 November 1965, when he was overthrown by Christophe Soglo after infighting among the members of the government. After this event he fled to Paris for the first time but he returned to Cotonou after the 1970 coup, when he became a member of the Presidential Triumvirate during the early 1970s. Following the 1972 coup, he was put under arrest alongside Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin and Maga, and was not released until 1981.

He was sometimes referred to as being part of the 'three-headed monster' of the 1960s in Benin. He died in exile in his Paris house, in December 1989, shortly before the transition to democracy in his country.

Born April 8, 1913 in Porto-Novo, Apithy was a descendant of a Goun royal family though was not born into privilege himself. His middle name, Migan, signified familial ties with chief ministers of old Dahomeyan kingdoms. He began his education at local mission schools and gained a bias for Roman Catholicism, for which he would later be insulted. Apithy would later become assistant teacher at his school. To further his education, Apithy travelled to Paris in 1933. After legal and economic studies at the Free School of Political Sciences, the National School of Economic and Social Organization, and at the Improvement Center in Business Administration of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, Apithy gained his diploma in accounting.