Yawovi Agboyibo

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Yawovi Agboyibo
Prime Minister of Togo
In office 16 September 2006 – 6 December 2007
President	Faure Gnassingbé
Preceded by	Edem Kodjo
Succeeded by	Komlan Mally
Born	31 December 1943
Political party	CAR

Yawovi Madji Agboyibo (born 31 December 1943^[1]) was the Prime Minister of Togo from September 2006 to December 2007. He is also National President of the Action Committee for Renewal (CAR) party.

Agboyibo was born in Kouvé in Yoto Prefecture. He became a lawyer and was active as an advocate for human rights.^[1][2] In 1985, during the single-party rule of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), he was elected to the National Assembly as an independent^[1][2][3] from Kouvé. He was re-elected in 1990,^[3] serving in the National Assembly until 1991.^[1] In 1987, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma appointed Agboyibo as President of the National Commission for Human Rights,^[2][4][5] which was created by the government on June 9, 1987^[4] and inaugurated on October 21, 1987.^[5] He served in that position until 1990.^[1][2] He was also a member of the Togolese League of Human Rights^[1] and was President of the Committee of Action against Tribalism and Regionalism from December 1990 to 1991.^[1][3]

Agboyibo was a leading participant in the struggle for democracy in the early 1990s and was President of the Front of Associations for Revival (FAR) at that time.^[1][2] He participated in the July–August 1991 National Conference^[2] and was a member of the High Council of the Republic, which acted as the transitional legislature, from 1991 to 1992.^[1] He also transformed the FAR into the Action Committee for Renewal (CAR), a political party, in 1991.^[2] He was a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990 to 1995, and on May 12, 1993 he was awarded the first German Africa Prize.^[1]

He was initially a candidate in the August 1993 presidential election, but, along with fellow opposition candidate Edem Kodjo, he announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy and boycotting the election^[4][6] on August 22, due to the number of registered voters being considered too high, a possible indication of fraud.^[4] Incumbent President Gnassingbé Eyadéma won the election overwhelmingly.^[4][6]

He was elected to the National Assembly in the 1994 parliamentary election, serving there until 1999; during this time he was President of the CAR Parliamentary Group.^[1] Following the election, the CAR and its ally, the Togolese Union for Democracy (UTD), headed by Kodjo, proposed Agboyibo as Prime Minister in March 1994, but subsequently three seats (two for the CAR and one for the UTD) were invalidated, narrowly depriving the alliance of its majority. Eyadéma appointed Kodjo as Prime Minister in April 1994, which according to the CAR represented a violation of the two parties' agreement, and it refused to participate in Kodjo's government.^[6]

On August 12, 1997, when Agboyibo was leaving the residence of the United States' ambassador to Togo, his car was stolen and his driver was knocked unconscious in an assault in the Lomé neighborhood of Be-Gbenyedji.^[7] In November 1997, Agboyibo was assaulted in Bafilo before he was to address a meeting of the CAR. He said that his assailants were soldiers and that the authorities were responsible.^[8]

On April 18, 1998, Agboyibo was nominated by the CAR as its candidate in the June 1998 presidential election at a national convention of the party in Lomé, becoming the third declared candidate.^[9][10] On this occasion he said that the register of voters was seriously flawed and needed to be reviewed.^[9] On June 18, he and fellow opposition candidate Zarifou Ayéva called for the election to be delayed due to irregularities during electoral preparations and difficulties they faced in campaigning, including their treatment by the High Audiovisual and Communication Authority.^[11] Following the election, held on June 21, he denounced the declaration of Eyadéma's victory by the Interior Ministry as being based on "completely false figures" on June 24^[12][13] and said that fellow opposition candidate Gilchrist Olympio of the Union of the Forces of Change (UFC) had won the election.^[14] According to final results from the Constitutional Court, Agboyibo received 9.54%, in third place behind Eyadéma and Olympio.^[15]

In 1999, Agboyibo was head of the CAR delegation to the Inter-Togolese Dialogue.^[1] On January 10, 2001, Agboyibo called on Eyadéma to dissolve the National Assembly and hold a transparent early parliamentary election in March 2001, in order to fulfill a July 1999 agreement with the opposition.^[16] In 2001, Agboyibo was tried for defamation of Prime Minister Agbeyome Kodjo; he had allegedly defamed Kodjo in 1998 by saying that he had participated in organizing a militia group while he was director of the Lomé port. On August 3, 2001, Agboyibo was sentenced to six months in prison and was fined 100,000 CFA francs.^[6][17] On August 23, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) called for his release, saying that he had not received a fair trial and noting that the president of the court was also the ruling RPT's representative on the National Electoral Commission.^[18] On September 27, he was additionally charged with having links to a group that allegedly committed crimes in Sedome in 1997.^[19] In late November, Amnesty International called for Agboyibo's release.^[20] Although an appeal court ruled in favor of Agboyibo regarding the defamation sentence in January 2002, he was not released due to the other charge of criminal complicity.^[21] He was finally released on Eyadéma's orders on March 14, 2002, a decision that Eyadéma's office attributed to "the interest of national reconciliation and political appeasement".^[22]

Agboyibo was the CAR's candidate in the presidential election of June 1, 2003, taking third place with 5.12% of the vote, according to official results.^[23] He claimed that fellow opposition candidate Emmanuel Bob-Akitani of the UFC won the election,^[24][25] placing Bob-Akitani's score at 54.80%, his own score at 13.46% (second place), and Eyadéma's score at only 11.03% (fourth place) in a statement on June 4.^[25] Despite this claim, Eyadéma was officially declared the winner, and Agboyibo denounced the election as fraudulent.^[24]

Regionally, Agboyibo was President of the Union of African Parties for Democracy and Development from 1996 to 2004 and has been Vice-President of the Union of African Parties for Democracy and Development - West Africa since 2005.^[1]

He was general coordinator of the opposition during the April 2005 presidential election;^[1][26] on 23 April, the day before the election, which was marked by violence and accusations of fraud, he denounced the election as "an electoral masquerade".^[26] On 22 April 2006^[27] he was elected as the consensus choice for the position of President of the Bureau of the Inter-Togolese Dialogue, which ran from 21 April to 20 August 2006.^[1]

His appointment as Prime Minister was announced on 16 September 2006 and he formed a government, composed of 35 ministers, four days later.^[28]

In the October 2007 parliamentary election, Agboyibo ran as a CAR candidate in Yoto Prefecture,^[29] and he was one of four CAR candidates who won seats in the election.^[30]

Following the election, Agboyibo presented his resignation to President Faure Gnassingbé on November 13, 2007, saying that the election marked the end of the mission he had been assigned.^[31] It was speculated that he would be reappointed as Prime Minister by Gnassingbé,^[32] but on December 3 Komlan Mally of the RPT was appointed Prime Minister.^[33][34] Agboyibo was succeeded by Mally at a ceremony on December 6, in which he spoke of his sadness in leaving office.^[35] Agboyibo chose not to sit in the National Assembly, leaving his seat to a substitute.^[36]

References

Prime Ministers of Togo Colonial: Grunitzky • Olympio • Independent: Olympio • office abolished, 1961-91 • Koffigoh • E. Kodjo • Klutse • Adoboli • A. Kodjo • Sama • E. Kodjo • Agboyibo • Mally