Public frustration over Togo’s recent constitutional reforms and rising living costs continues to simmer, but attempts at peaceful protest are being met with force. On August 30, 2025, civil society groups planned a march in Lomé to press for action on these grievances and to demand accountability for the deadly crackdown on demonstrators in June. Instead, heavy deployments of security forces turned the day into another display of state repression.
Activist and musician Aamron, who has previously been arrested after he called for a protest on the President’s birthday on June 6, set out with his mother and a small group of supporters, only to be confronted by armed soldiers. They were forcibly escorted back home and compelled to delete photographs taken at the scene.
Former defence minister Essissomna Marguerite Gnakadé, one of the high-profile voices against the government, managed only a few hundred metres before being stopped and sent back by security officers. Meanwhile, Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson, president of the Democratic Convention of African Peoples (CDPA), awoke to find soldiers surrounding her home and neighbourhood from midnight on the eve of the march, preventing her from leaving at all.
These incidents underscore a widening rift between an increasingly restless population and a government determined to suppress dissent. The Media Foundation for West Africa condemns the repression and the intimidation of opinion leaders. We urge the Togolese authorities to respect freedom of assembly, end heavy-handed tactics, and engage meaningfully with citizens’ demands to restore public trust and social peace.
