Since July 27, 2026, a former Togolese defense minister has been on a hunger strike while incarcerated, refusing all food to condemn the harsh treatment she claims to endure behind bars. Eleven months after her arrest for publicly criticizing President Faure Gnassingbé’s leadership, she now speaks for over sixty political detainees still denied freedom.
The turning point came on August 30, 2025, when Lomé erupted in protests led by exasperated youth over soaring living costs and a constitutional reform that shifted Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system. Essozimna Marguerite Gnakadé, the country’s first female defense minister (2020–2022), joined the demonstrations and was briefly dispersed by security forces before her eventual arrest on September 17, 2025. Her alleged crime? Publicly questioning the president’s fitness to govern.
From political insider to prisoner of conscience
Marguerite Gnakadé’s background stood out even before her imprisonment. Appointed defense minister in October 2020 without prior military experience, she was also the late Ernest Gnassingbé’s widow, the president’s brother. Yet this connection to the ruling elite did not shield her when she aligned herself with the popular uprising rather than suppressing it.
« This hunger strike is not born of despair, but of unshakable conviction. When justice remains silent, our bodies become the final plea. »
Statement from collective of hunger-striking political detainees, November 2025
Desperate measures in the face of brutal detention conditions
Her protest echoes a growing trend among Togo’s political prisoners. Over the past year, hunger strikes have emerged as one of the few tools available to voice their plight. In November 2025, thirty-seven detainees joined a collective fast. By December, activists Grâce Koumayi and dual-national Abdoul Aziz Goma had endured fifty days without food at Lomé’s central prison, prompting authorities to take notice. Human rights groups now demand immediate medical care for all striking detainees.
What fate awaits disgraced officials behind bars?
Marguerite Gnakadé shares headlines with Kpatcha Gnassingbé and General Félix Kadanga—two former regime insiders whose fates contrast sharply with hers. Kpatcha, the president’s half-brother and ex-defense minister, served sixteen years for an alleged coup attempt before being pardoned in late December 2025. General Kadanga, former army chief, has been serving a twenty-year sentence since 2023 for complicity in a colonel’s murder.
Unlike them, Marguerite Gnakadé remains imprisoned solely for exercising her right to criticize the government—a distinction that underscores the regime’s tightening grip on dissent.
Togo’s simmering crisis after constitutional overhaul
Since March 2024, Togo has operated under a revised Constitution that abolished presidential term limits, installing Faure Gnassingbé as prime minister. Critics labeled the move a « constitutional coup, » sparking the 2025 youth-led Gen Z uprising. Authorities quelled the unrest through mass arrests, swelling the ranks of political prisoners.
A presidential pardon in late December 2025 freed 1,511 detainees, hailed as a peace gesture. Yet civil society groups estimate roughly seventy « opinion prisoners » remain jailed, their fate unresolved.
NGO pressure mounts for the release of political detainees
The campaign for their freedom, led by groups like « Hands Off My Constitution » and opposition parties, gains momentum. Reports indicate at least nine prisoners have died in custody since repression began, while others bear lasting scars from abuse. Activists demand the unconditional release of all political detainees and urgent medical access for hunger strikers like Marguerite Gnakadé, whose health has deteriorated after eleven months behind bars.
