Togolese authorities shut down Internet as number of protesters surge

The Togolese authorities have shut down the Internet as the number of citizens joining the protests around the country builds up Wednesday September 6, 2017.

The protesters led by opposition parties are demanding an amendment in the Constitution for time limits. Others are demanding that Faure Gnassingbe who took over after his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema who died in 2005 after being Head of State from 1967, step sdown.

The protests erupted last week and seven people were reported killed. This week however, the government in response to opposition demands surreptitiously adopted a draft Bill amending Articles 52, 59 and 60 of the Constitution for term limits, but that didn’t seem to have impressed the opposition.

Reports monitored on social media and the BBC indicate that apart from the area of Kara, which is a populated predominantly by Gnassingbe supporters, there were protests all over the country.

“How can one family rule the country for 50 years?” A protestor was heard asking on the BBC.

As the Internet was shut down, reports say, citizens moved closer to the Ghana-Togo border to access Internet using the SIM cards of Ghanaian mobile phone companies.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi