Sylvanus Olympio

Sylvanus Épiphanio Olympio was born on the sixth of September 1902 in Kpando, in the German colony of Togoland — a town that today lies within Ghana's Volta Region. He belonged to the distinguished Olympio family, a lineage of Afro-Brazilian merchants whose fortunes reached across the Bight of Benin. His father, Epiphanio Olympio, was a prominent trader who ran a commercial house in Agoué for the Liverpool firm Miller Brothers, and his uncle Octaviano counted among the wealthiest men in Togo.

Educated first at a German Catholic school in Lomé, Olympio crossed the sea to London, where he earned a degree in commerce from the London School of Economics in 1925. He then rose through the United Africa Company, a Unilever subsidiary, serving across Nigeria, the Gold Coast, and Togoland until he stood among its senior managers on the continent.

Returning to the cause of his people, he led the Comité de l'Unité Togolaise from 1941, becoming the foremost voice against French control. When Togo won its independence, he was chosen prime minister and, in 1961, its first president. He governed with fiscal discipline, national unity, and a determined independence from foreign patronage.

On the thirteenth of January 1963, Olympio was killed in a military coup in Lomé — the first head of state of independent postcolonial Africa to be so struck down. Father of Togolese independence, he is honored still as a builder of nations and a steadfast servant of his people.