To the French charge d’affaires in Accra, it seemed that Ghana’s Foreign Minister Kojo Botsio was only trying to be helpful. The Foreign Minister had called him in especially to warn the French of a sinister plot about to take place in neighboring Togoland, which the French have run under trusteeship since World War I. Botsio’s intelligence seemed detailed; he knew what roads were to be seized and at what hour, what communications lines would be cut, just who in the Togoland government would be arrested. It was all very convincing, even though the French diplomat knew that Ghana itself is working to annex French Togoland as it has already annexed British Togoland. The French charge rattled off a message to Paris that there was no time to be lost.
Had the story ended there, it would have had its share of irony. The Premier of Togoland, Sylvanus Olympic, against whom the plot was presumably directed, has long been a thorn in the French side. A graduate of the London School of Economics and a top African executive in Unilever (Lever Bros.), Olympio lobbied so successfully in Paris and at the U.N. that he wangled from a reluctant Paris the promise of independence by 1960.
Nevertheless, compared to the youthful hotheads of Togoland’s vociferous Juvento Party, Olympic had turned out to be a moderate. The Juvento demand ouster of the French and union with Ghana. It was strange, of course, that the Ghanaians, who had so much to gain from Togoland’s Juvento and so much to lose with Olympio, should be the very ones to warn of a Juvento plot against him. But the French apparently did not take time to think about that.
To Lome flew three planeloads of French paratroopers, and a column of infantry moved in to cordon off the city. Angrily, the Togolese demanded just what the French meant by this show of force. French officers, equally puzzled, said they had come to stop a revolution. Asked the Togolese huffily: “What revolution?” At his shabby house, called La Hutte, the debonair Premier airily dismissed a guard assigned to protect him against assassination: “Go away. I don’t need you. If you want to sit up all night at the alert, go to your camp and do it, but leave me in peace.” He went back to his dinner, chuckling. “A coup d’état by the Juvento?” he scoffed. “Nonsense. They are much too busy dividing themselves into factions. They haven’t time ta plan.”
Olympio was right, and four days later the French withdrew with what dignity they could. But what about the Ghana story of a plot? Was it just a trap to embarrass Olympio? In Accra officials said nothing, and Paris thought it best to do the same. Sighed one Parisian official helplessly: “Charmant, n’ést-ce pas?”
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