Gnassingbé Eyadéma (26 December 1935-5 February 2005), born Etienne Eyadéma, was President of Togo from 14 April 1967 to 5 February 2005, succeeding Kleber Dadjo and preceding Faure Gnassingbe. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving ruler in Africa, having held power for 38 years.
Biography[]
Etienne Eyadéma was born in Pya, Togo on 26 December 1935 to a Kabye family, and he joined the French Army in 1953. Eyadema served in the First Indochina War and the Algerian War during the 1950s, and he left the army in 1962 before returning to Togo. In 1963, he led a military coup against Sylvanus Olympio's Togolese government, and he installed Nicolas Grunitzky as the new president. In 1967, he led another coup, this time making himself President and Minister of Defense of Togo. Eyadéma created the Rally of the Togolese People as the only legal party in his single-party state, and he passed a constitution that stated that the leader of the party would automatically be entitled to seven-year presidential terms; as leader of the party, Eyadéma was president from 1967 to 2005. He also lowered the minimum presidential age from 45 to 35, which was seen as an attempt by Eyadéma to ensure that his son Faure Gnassingbe could succeed him as president on his death. He built up a personality cult that claimed that he had superhuman powers; he claimed that he was the sole survivor of a 1974 plane crash, and he even became the hero of a comic book series that presented him as an invulnerable man with superhuman strength. On 5 February 2005, he died of a heart attack on a plane over Tunis, Tunisia at the age of 69, and his son Faure succeeded him.