Nigerian president tells Togolese counterpart to embrace democratic rule

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria told Faure Gnassingbe, the army-appointed president of Togo, that he should hold democratic elections and return to the constitution as it existed before he seized power at a meeting in the Nigerian capital on Monday. “The President asked them to retrace their steps and return to the position of constitutionality and organise a true, free and transparent election,” Obasanjo’s spokeswoman, Remi Oyo, told reporters. The Togolese delegation left the meeting without comment and flew home. Oyo said Obasanjo had received the Togolese visitors at the instance of Gnassingbe who wanted to explain why he took office arbitrarily in defiance of the constitution. This stipulated that in the event of the death of the president, the president of the national assembly should take over as interim head of state and organise fresh presidential elections with 60 days. But hours after Eyadema died on 5 February, after ruling his small West African country with a rod of iron for 38 years, the army imposed his son, who was Minister of Public Works, Mines and Telecommunications, as president. A day later parliament was hastily summoned to rubber stamp Gnassingbe's appointment and change the constitution to allow him to rule without holding presidential elections until 2008. Gnassingbe's seizure of power was widely condemned in Africa and further afield as a military coup d'etat. His trip to Nigeria, the regional superpower, was his first since he succeeded his father 12 days ago. The Togolese leader was accompanied by a large entourage of ministers and parliamentarians. Oyo quoted the Togolese delegation as telling Obasanjo that Gnassingbe was chosen as president “to prevent a descent to anarchy” in the country. Togolese government officials said privately in Lome on Wednesday that Gnassingbe was prepared to bow to strong pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) to return to the constitution as it existed before he seized power and hold elections within 60 days. But they declined to say whether or not Gnassingbe was prepared to step down as president in the meantime. Diplomats in Lome told IRIN he was unlikely to do so. Togo's five million people gathered round radios and television sets on Wednesday night to hear Gnassingbe make a promised address to the nation, but he failed to speak and his broadcast has now been postponed indefinitely. Obasanjo, the current chairman of the AU and a fierce critic of the way the transition of power was handled in Togo, did not bestow on Gnassingbe any of the special honours usually reserved for visiting heads of state. The Togolese leader was met at the airport by Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji.