Syerramia Willoughby, Editor of Africa at LSE, looks at the circumstances surrounding the first coup d’état and assassination on the African continent after independence. On 13 January 1963, Togo’s first President Sylvanus Olympio was shot down outside the US Embassy in Lomé while fleeing from dissatisfied soldiers who were conducting a coup d’état. This event … Continue reading Remembering sub-Saharan Africa’s first military coup d’état fifty years on