Where the Gulf Laps the Shore: Coastal Francophone West Africa
The Grand Mosque at Conakry, Guinea
Like much of the rest of Africa, the former French colonies on the Gulf of Guinea faced uncertainty upon independence. A lack of economic diversification and development, tensions between pan-Africanists and regionalism, clashing personalities and the continued presence of France behind the scenes challenged the vision of prosperity many West Africans expected after independence.
Ahmed Sékou Touré (left), first President of Guinea
Guinea was the first of these states, gaining independence in 1958 as the only colony to choose full sovereignty over internal autonomy within the French Community after the founding of the French Fifth Republic. From the country's beginning, it was dominated by the
Parti Démocratique de Guinée-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (PDG-RDA) of Ahmed Sékou Touré. The PDG-RDA won 56 of the 60 seats in the territorial assembly in elections held on independence, and Sékou Touré became Guinea's first President. In 1960 Sékou Touré declared the PDG-RDA the only legal party in Guinea, introducing a system of single-party rule. A strong opponent of European colonialism and exploitation of the developing world, Sékou Touré aligned himself with the Eastern Bloc and the Non-Aligned Movement championed by Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, he was still willing to receive aid and other assistance from the United States and other capitalist powers.
Sékou Touré shook off the French influence that remained in many of the other states in the region, nationalising land, removing French-appointed and traditional chiefs from power and breaking ties with the French government and companies. All of this was made possible through increasingly autocratic methods of government, with democracy in Guinea only a mere shadow of its former-self. Voters were presented a single list of PDG-RDA candidates for the assembly, having essentially no real input into the political system. Sékou Touré was intolerant of dissent, imprisoning or exiling hundreds of political opponents and exerting control over all media outlets. Sékou Touré's anti-colonialism became increasingly virulent, and along with it his paranoia that his enemies were plotting his overthrow. In 1966 he expelled the US Peace Corps, believing they were working with the CIA to overthrow him. Sékou Touré's only real allies remained Nkrumah in Ghana and Keïta in Mali. He supported the PAIGC rebels in Guinea-Bissau, leading to Operation Green Sea in 1970, an amphibious attack on Conakry by the Portuguese military, seeking to overthrow Sékou Touré, release Portuguese POWs and cut off Guinean support for the Bissau-Guinean rebels. The POWs were rescued but the rest of the objectives weren't achieved. A number of other African states pledged their support to Sékou Touré and the USSR sent a force of warships, the West Africa Patrol to the Gulf of Guinea to discourage other similar operations.
Félix Houphouët-Boigny, President of Côte d'Ivoire
Ivory Coast, or Côte d'Ivoire, historically by far the most economically-developed of France's West African colonies, performed relatively well upon independence. Led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who had rised to prominence after forming the first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers during the colonial period, had pioneered both self-sufficiency and economic viability, encouraging cocoa farmers to establish their own farms on smallholdings. A year after Houphouët-Boigny's mobilisation of labour, the French abolished forced labour in West Africa. Houphouët-Boigny is credited with leading the so-called "economic miracle" which kept Côte d'Ivoire's growth rate at almost 10% p.a. throughout the 1960s.
Although Houphouët-Boigny faced no opposition from rival parties, his
Parti Démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire becoming the
de facto party of the state in 1957, he was soon faced with internal challengers within his party. Radical nationalists, led by Jean-Baptiste Mockey, openly opposed the government's Francophile policies. Mockey was exiled in September 1959, accused of attempting to assassinate Houphouët-Boigny with
vodun (West African form of voodoo) in what the latter called the
complot du chat noir, or "the black cat conspiracy". 1963 was marked by a series of alleged plots that played a decisive role in enabling Houphouët-Boigny to consolidate power into his hands. Between 120 and 200 secret trials were held in Yamoussoukro, away from the capital Abidjan and in the area of strongest support for the President, himself a local of the area. Houphouët-Boigny experienced a close shave when major figures in the military grew restive following the arrest of Defence Minister Jean Konan Banny, but the personal intervention of the President managed to pacify them, preventing another military coup, which by then was already becoming all too common in Africa.
As a result of these internal fissures, all adult citizens were required to be PDCI members, all other parties were banned, the media was tightly controlled and a new constitution was introduced minimising the power of the legislature whilst giving sweeping powers to the presidency. Houphouët-Boigny's particular brand of authoritarianism was more paternalistic than in states such as Guinea and Mali, and his choice of methods reflected this. In 1967 he freed political prisoners and offered government positions to many critics in order to entice them to his cause. To weaken the army, he placed national defence in the hands of the French armed forces, who intervened against Sanni monarchist-secessionists (who were supported by Ghana) in a major campaign in 1959 and low-level fighting throughout the 1960s. Throughout his presidency, Houphouët-Boigny opposed attempts at full West African federation, forming in 1959 the
Conseil de l'Entente with Hamani Diori of Niger, Yaméogo of Upper Volta and Maga of Dahomey in order to hamper the expansion of the Mali Federation, allowing shared management of certain public services and providing funding for development projects through low-interest loans (70%) of which were supplied by Côte d'Ivoire. If there was one thing Houphouët-Boigny knew well, it was how to buy friends. In 1966, he offered to grant dual citizenship to members of this regional organisation, but had to abandon that scheme following popular protests against the idea. Houphouët-Boigny also headed several Francophone continent-wide associations which sought to oppose the primarily-Anglophone Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The most significant of these was
l'Organisation Commune Africaine et Malgache (OCAM). He also sought to undermine pan-Africanist regimes, especially those of Ahmed Sékou Touré in Guinea and Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana. Houphouët-Boigny cooperated with French intelligence agency SDECE in their efforts to overthrow Sékou Touré, including delivering small arms to Guinean rebels sheltered by Côte d'Ivoire in January 1960. In 1967 he promoted the creation of a more centralised opposition to Sékou Touré, the
Front National Libération de la Guinée (FNLG). In response, Sékou Touré convinced Nkrumah to aid Sanni secessionists. Furious, Houphouët-Boigny accused Nkrumah of trying to destabilise Côte d'Ivoire in 1963, calling for Francophone states to boycott the upcoming OAU conference in Accra. Côte d'Ivoire also supported the Biafran and Yoruba secessionists in Nigeria and sought ties with South Africa.
The small republic of Togo achieved independence in 1960 under President Sylvanus Olympio. A pan-Africanist, Olympio made his ally and friend Ahmed Sékou Touré
conseiller special to his government. In the presidential elections upon independence, Olympio defeated his main opponent, Nicolas Grunitzky, acquiring over 90% of the popular vote. Despite his good relationship with the Guinean president, relations with Ghana were more strained, with the main stumbling bloc being the fate of what had been British Togoland. A plebiscite in 1956 decided the area's incorporation into the British Gold Coast, with 63.9% support for integration, whilst most of the remainder, including the dominant Ewe people (represented by the Togoland Congress Party) , sought unification with French Togoland, where many other Ewe lived. Olympio loudly promoted the view that that region should have been incorporated into Togo, and Nkrumah provoked Olympio further by claiming that all of Togo should become part of Ghana. Multiple assassination attempts on the leaders were blamed on the other. These tensions would boil over later in the decade.
The French distrusted Olympio due to his association with British mercantile interests, which had been cultivated during the Second World War. Olympio tried to rely on little foreign aid, distrustful of the intentions of the French in particular, and sought German aid where possible as a neutral source. Olympio fostered relations with the US and former British colonies such as Nigeria, although these were largely tossed aside with the successful secession of Yorubaland and Biafra, leaving Togo politically-isolated in the area, with the exception of positive relations with Côte d'Ivoire. An anti-militarist, Olympio ensured that Togo had a military of only 250 soldiers, despite pleas to increase funding and enlist ex-French troops returning to their Togolese homeland. On 24th September 1962, Olympio rejected the personal plea by Sgt. Étienne Eyadéma to join the Togolese military. On 7th January 1963, Col. Kléber Dadjo, head of the Togolese army, presented a written request for enlisting ex-French troops. Frustrated by his persistence, Olympio tore up the request.
By this time, Togo had become largely a one-party state. Opposition had been outlawed after a 1961 attempt on Olympio's life, in which Nicolas Grunitzky's
Parti Togolais du Progrès and the
Juvento movement of Antoine Meatchi were implicated. Meatchi was imprisoned for a brief time until being exiled, taking up residence in Paris. Shortly after midnight on 13 January 1963, Olympio and his wife were awakened by the sounds of the military breaking into the presidential palace. Olympio's body was later found by US ambassador Leon B. Poullada mere feet from the door of the US embassy in Lomé. Sylvanus Olympio had the dubious honour of being the first national president to be assassinated during a military coup in Africa. A new government was formed by the military with Grunitzky as President and Meatchi as Vice-President. In order to promote national reconciliation, Grunitzky formed a government with representation from all parties. On 21st November 1966, an attempt to overthrow Grunitzky by civilian opponents in the UT party was unsuccessful. Concerned, the President did what he could to lessen reliance on the military. Hearing word of an impending coup, Grunitzky had Lt. Col. Eyadéma arrested on January 6th[153].
Nicolas Grunitzky on a Togolese stamp
Tensions with Ghana continued to flare up, prompting Grunitzky to increase military spending and recruitment. With a ready pool of Togolese men who had been in French employ as soldiers, the national recruitment drive was met with success. Armaments were also easy to come by, provided by France and subsidised by Côte d'Ivoire. Houphouët-Boigny, determined to utilise Togo as a proxy in his rivalry against Nkrumah, mobilised the
Forces Republicaines de Cote d'Ivoire and moved them to the border with Ghana. Crossing the border in force, the Ivoirian army claimed to be pursuing Sanni fighters across the border, destroying a number of villagers they accused of harbouring the separatists. Simultaneously, Togolese troops crossed the eastern border of Ghana, facing minimal resistance and advancing to Lake Volta. Advancing further north was more of a slog, but within five weeks the whole of former British Togoland was under the control of Lomé. On the other side of the country, the Ivoirians had pushed back the Ghanaian army and was marching on Accra. Internally, a coup against Nkrumah led to his flight to Guinea, with Lt. Gen. Joseph Arthur Ankrah taking control of the Ghanaian government. Peace accords were signed with between Ghana and the Togolese-Ivoirian alliance in Monrovia, with Ghana ceding the Togolese occupied areas to Togo and committing to combating Sanni fighters in Ghanaian territory. In the event, this would only be the beginning of the balkanisation of Ghana.
Whilst most states in West Africa were dominated by a single major personality in the first few years after independence, Dahomey's political landscape was notable for fractures along regional lines, underscored by different historical experiences. The first president of the country was Coutoucou Hubert Maga, a northerner. The first few years of independence weren't successful for the country. It experienced an economic collapse as the miniscule pool of foreign investment dried up. As the least economically-developed of France's African colonies, it was reliant on French subsidies which ceased with independence. Unemployment skyrocketed, and the political situation was further destabilised by an assassination attempt on the President in May 1961, orchestrated by the main opposition leader Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin.
Hubert Maga, who virtually ruled the north of Dahomey as his personal fief
Maga's attempts at turning the economy around turned out to be ham-fisted and ineffectual. He launched a four-year plan in January 1962, intended to increase agricultural production by forcing youths to work the land. By November, he had established a single-party state and restriction of opposition press had become commonplace. The country had not had a favourable trade balance since 1924 and the economic strain introduced by independence proved too much for Maga to turn around. Despite investment in infrastructure, Dahomey had an average annual GDP growth rate of only 1.4% between 1957 and 1965. Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin convinced the trade unions under his influence to begin another strike in protest against Maga's inability to promote national development. The demonstrations lasted two days in Porto Novo and Cotonou and became so serious that the police used tear gas to disperse them. The riots finally ended when Maga sent south loyalists armed with bows to patrol the streets at night. Members of Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin's UDD party organised a motion of censure in the National Assembly. Maga relied on Sourou-Migan Apithy's assistance in opposing the motion, and they were able to defeat it. UDD deputies began to resign, and the PRD (Apithy) and RDD (Maga) merged to form the PDU, led by Maga.
On August 1st, 1961, Dahoméen forces captured the Portuguese enclave of Ajuda (Ouidah). On May 26th, Albert Teveodjré notified Maga that Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin had plotted to assassinate him. A trial began in December, with Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin and 11 other dissidents put on the stand. The trial was unusual in Dahomey, being conducted in public. The dissidents were released on November 3rd, 1962. Despite the economic vice the country found itself gripped in, Maga commissioned the architect Chomette to build a $3 million presidential palace in Porto Novo. January 1962 saw the poisoning of Dessou, an official of the Sakete sub-prefecture. Christophe Bokhari, deputy from his constituency was accused and arrested, but was released under parliamentary-immunity clauses in the Dahoméen constitution.
Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin, a direct descendant of the kings of Abomey and representative of the southwest of Dahomey
Maga was in Paris at the time, and tribal clashes broke out in Dahomey between the major tribal groupings of the north, southeast and southwest in the summer of 1963. Demonstrations in Porto Novo on October 21st soon spread to Cotonou. Trade unionists got involved and made the issue about their interests. They criticised what they called Maga's "squander-mania", such as the construction of a presidential palace. Six trade unionists were arrested on the second day of the demonstrations, causing the unions to call a general strike. By the end of the 2nd day, protesters forced the National Assembly to put Bokhiri back in jail, and the assembly enforced a curfew. Maga cancelled a planned trip to the United States and returned to Dahomey immediately. A special National Assembly session was convened, but the protesters reacted with indifference to his attempts at reconciliation. When Maga agreed with their demands and replaced his government with a provisional one in which Apithy and Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin had equal standing with him, the protestors organised to protest this new order. Armed northerners came down to Cotonou to support Maga and clashed with dissenters, killing two. The demonstrators refused to go back to their jobs until Maga quit his.
On October 28, Christophe Soglo took control of the country through a military coup in order to prevent a civil war and break the political impasse. He dismissed the cabinet, dissolved the assembly, suspended the constitution and banned any type of demonstrations. He made the three regional leaders, Maga, Apithy and Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin Ministers of State. This provisional government dissolved the PDU and replaced it with the
Parti Démocratique de Dahomey (PDD). A committee was established to investigate alleged wrongdoings by the Maga administration. In late November it began prosecuting members of Maga's cabinet, including the Minister of National Economy and the Finance Minister for misuse of public funds. Despite a generally friendly relationship, Soglo held Maga responsible for an assassination plot against him that was discovered in early December. Maga resigned his position on December 4th, shortly before being placed under house arrest. Eventually, the conspiracy charge was dropped, but Maga was found guilty of corruption. In May 1964, Chabi Mama and a devoted group of Maga supporters from the north tried to remove him from house arrest and reinstate him into power. The military was called in to quell their murderous rampage. After a retrial, Maga was released from house arrest in March 1965. He went into exile in Togo before moving to Paris. Maga formed a new party in exile, the
Union Nationale Dahoméenne on December 9th, 1965. Maya and Apithy banded together to protest a special session of the National Assembly on December 21st 1965, that would vote on a new constitution for Dahomey. As a result of their resistance, the session was never held. The new constitution was intended to abolish the Vice-Presidential positions, strengthening executive authority.
Sourou-Migan Apithy, descendant of a Goun royal family and representative of the southeast of Dahomey
Apithy was installed into the presidency by Soglo in January 1964, but due to a lack of political dialogue, Soglo against overthrew the government in November 1965 and served as President until December 1967, when he was himself overthrown by younger officers, led by Maj. Jean-Baptiste Hachème, Maurice Kouandété and politician Alphonse Alley. The former two each held the presidency for a single day, until Alphonse Alley came into power on 21st December 1967. His administration introduced a new constitution and attempted to hold a presidential election, although it was annulled because of a boycott that prevented almost 3/4 of the country from voting. Alley angered the military by suggesting that they retreat from politics. He was reined in and reduced to little more than a mouthpiece for Kouandété. On 17th July 1968, Kouandété forced Alley to resign and handed power to Dr. Emile Derlin Zinsou to improve relations with the French. Zinsou was ousted by Kouandété on 10th December 1969, who had discovered that Zinsou planned to replace him and cut the size of the armed forces. When Zinsou arrived back at the presidential palace that day, soldiers opened fire on his convoy with automatic weapons. Zinsou escaped, but two of his bodyguards were killed. Kouandété justified the coup by stating that Zinsou had failed to reconcile the various factions in the country. This time, however, the rest of the military failed to recognise Kouandété as the man in charge. A military directorate was established with Paul Emile de Souza as its chairman, Kouandété as another member and Col. Benoit Sinzogan (of the gendarmerie) as the third member in their triumvirate. An election was held on 28th March 1970 to determine the president. The veteran politicians were allowed to campaign, and their rallies were accompanied by violent outbursts. The elections were later annulled and a presidential council consisting of Maga, Apithy and Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin was set up on May 7th with a revolving presidency which changed every two years. Maga was inaugurated as the first president under this new system.
A bas-relief at the Royal Palaces at Abomey. Also a rather fitting representation of the politics of Dahomey
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[153] IOTL, Eyadéma overthrew Grunitzky in a bloodless coup on the 13th of January.