Togo: imprisoned ex-minister Marguerite Gnakadé enters hunger strike

Since July 27, 2026, Togo’s former Defense Minister has refused all food to protest the harsh conditions she faces behind bars. Eleven months after her arrest for criticizing President Faure Gnassingbé’s leadership, she is now using her body as a megaphone for nearly sixty political prisoners still languishing in detention.

On August 30, 2025, as Lomé erupted in protests over rising living costs and a constitutional amendment that shifted Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system, Essozimna Marguerite Gnakadé took to the streets. The former Defense Minister—who made history as the first woman to hold the post from 2020 to 2022—was briefly detained by security forces and sent home. Weeks later, on September 17, 2025, she was arrested for publicly questioning the president’s fitness to govern.

From power to prisoner: the unyielding voice of a former ally

Gnakadé’s background set her apart long before her imprisonment. Appointed Defense Minister in October 2020 without prior military experience, she was also the widow of Ernest Gnassingbé, the late brother of the current president. Yet her ties to the ruling elite offered no shield when she chose to stand with the people rather than suppress their dissent.

« We launch this hunger strike not out of despair, but out of conviction. When justice remains silent, our bodies become our final cry. »
Statement from a collective of hunger-striking political prisoners, November 2025

Desperate measures in the face of inhumane prison conditions

Gnakadé’s protest is far from isolated. For over a year, hunger strikes have emerged as one of the few tools available to political prisoners in Togo to demand change. In November 2025, thirty-seven inmates initiated a collective fast. By December, activists Grace Koumayi and dual national Abdoul Aziz Goma had endured fifty days without food at Lomé’s central prison, prompting prison authorities to take notice. Human rights groups have since called for urgent medical care for all striking detainees.

Where do former regime insiders stand in Togo’s prison crisis?

The name Marguerite Gnakadé is often mentioned alongside those of Kpatcha Gnassingbé and General Félix Kadanga—two other high-profile figures once close to power. Their fates, however, diverge sharply. Kpatcha Gnassingbé, half-brother of the president and former Defense Minister, spent sixteen years in prison after being convicted of plotting a coup, only to be released under a presidential pardon in late December 2025. General Kadanga, a former army chief, has been serving a twenty-year sentence since 2023 for complicity in a colonel’s murder. To date, Gnakadé remains the only one still imprisoned for an offense tied directly to political dissent.

Togo’s ongoing crisis after constitutional reform

The turmoil stems from a March 2024 constitutional overhaul that converted Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system, allowing President Gnassingbé to assume the role of Council of Ministers President with no term limits. Opposition figures labeled the reform a « constitutional coup, » fueling the 2025 youth-led « Gen Z » uprising. Authorities responded with a heavy crackdown, leading to a wave of arrests that produced many of today’s so-called « opinion prisoners. »

A December 2025 presidential pardon freed 1,511 detainees, a move framed as a conciliatory gesture. Civil society groups, however, report that roughly seventy political prisoners remain jailed.

NGOs rally for the release of Togo’s political detainees

The campaign for their freedom, led by the « Don’t Touch My Constitution » collective and opposition parties, continues unabated. These groups highlight reports of at least nine prisoners who have died in custody since the crackdown began, along with others left with lasting injuries from abuse. They demand the immediate, unconditional release of all political prisoners and urgent medical attention for hunger strikers like Gnakadé, whose health has deteriorated after eleven months behind bars.