Togo’s Ex-Defense Chief Joins Calls for President to Step Down

Demands for Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé to step down and end his family’s 58-year rule escalated after a former defense minister urged the West African nation’s military to back the people.

“I take this opportunity to call on the armed forces to stand with the people for the liberation and reconstruction of our country,” Essozimna Marguerite Gnakade, the first woman to head the defense ministry, said in a video posted on YouTube. “No people can accept oppression, poverty and injustice indefinitely.”