A military contingent surrounded the home of a Togolese opposition leader early on Friday, journalists said, a day after the opposition called for results handing the presidential election to the ruling party to be overturned.
At approximately 1am, several all-terrain vehicles and armed soldiers were deployed outside the residence of Jean-Pierre Fabre, secretary general of the main opposition Union of Forces for Change (UFC) in the West African country.
Asked by reporters wishing to get to Fabre’s home in the capital Lomé, the soldiers advised them to stay away, and refused to say why they were there.
Fabre confirmed by telephone to French news agency AFP that his home was ”surrounded by elements of the security forces for more than an hour,” adding he had no idea what the soldiers were up to.
No one from the government was available to comment on the events concerning Fabre — whose UFC has been central in seeking to have the results in last Sunday’s election thrown out.
Ruling party candidate Faure Gnassingbe was earlier this week declared the winner, provoking violence around Togo which left at least 22 people dead and saw hundreds of people fleeing the country.
Early Friday morning, the Goethe Institute in Lome was set on fire by armed men who first shot at the building before storming it, rescuers and journalists said.
A firefighter who wished to remain anonymous said the fire at the German cultural centre was ”without doubt of criminal origin”.
”Right now we are trying to stop the fire, that is all I can tell you,” he added.
One of the guards at the centre said ”they [the armed men] threatened me and force me to open” the door, saying that the men ”were masked and dressed in civilian clothing but I think they were soldiers”.
The government has strongly criticised the German embassy in Togo in recent days, accusing it of supporting the opposition.
The main opposition candidate, Emmanual Akitani Bob, on Wednesday declared himself the winner of the poll, as his supporters denounced alleged ballot-box stuffing and vote fraud.
International politicians, foremost the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the United States and France, a former colonial power, have urged Togolose leaders to rein in their supporters and stop the violence.
Ecowas and the African Union have joined calls by Washington and the European Union for a government of national unity in Togo, which has been cut off from international aid for a decade over its democratic deficiencies. – Sapa-AFP