Sylvanus Olympio
1902 – 1963 Togolese first president of Togo, independence leader
Togo's first president, an independence leader killed in a 1963 coup widely seen as the first coup of postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa.
- Affiliations
- Comite de l'unite togolaise, United Africa Company
Sylvanus Olympio, from the prominent Afro-Brazilian Olympio family, led Togo's nationalist movement and became the country's first president when it gained independence from France in 1960. He sought some distance from Paris, moving toward Togo's own currency and resisting demands from demobilized soldiers who had served in the French army. He was shot dead outside the US embassy in Lome on 13 January 1963 in a coup by a group of those soldiers. Gnassingbe Eyadema, who took part in the coup, later claimed to have fired the fatal shots; historians continue to debate how much France knew of or tolerated the plot, which Paris denied.
Connections
- rival of Gnassingbe Eyadema — Eyadema took part in the coup that killed Olympio and later claimed to have fired the shots.
- rival of Gnassingbe Eyadema — Took part in the 1963 coup that killed Olympio and later claimed to have fired the shots.
- rival of Kwame Nkrumah — Regional rival over the future of the Ewe people and Togo-Ghana relations.
In the timeline
- 1960 Independence of Togo independence leader and first president
- 1963 Assassination of Togo's President Olympio mentioned
- 1963 Togo's president Sylvanus Olympio is assassinated the president killed in the coup
- 1963 Sylvanus Olympio assassinated in Lome coup central figure