25 Facts About Yawovi Agboyibo

Yawovi Madji Agboyibo was a Togolese attorney and politician.

Yawovi Agboyibo served as Prime Minister of Togo from September 2006 to December 2007 and was National President of the Action Committee for Renewal, an opposition political party, from 1991 to 2008.

Yawovi Agboyibo became a lawyer and was active as an advocate for human rights.

Yawovi Agboyibo was re-elected to the National Assembly in 1990, serving as a Deputy until the National Assembly was dissolved in 1991.

Yawovi Agboyibo was a member of the Togolese League of Human Rights and was President of the Committee of Action against Tribalism and Regionalism from December 1990 to 1991.

Yawovi Agboyibo was a leading participant in the struggle for democracy in the early 1990s and was President of the Front of Associations for Revival at that time.

Yawovi Agboyibo transformed the FAR into the Action Committee for Renewal, a political party, in 1991.

Yawovi Agboyibo was a member of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990 to 1995, and on 12 May 1993 he was awarded the first German Africa Prize.

Yawovi Agboyibo was elected to the National Assembly in the first round of the February 1994 parliamentary election as the CAR candidate in the First Constituency of Yoto-Centre.

On 12 August 1997, when Yawovi Agboyibo was leaving the residence of the United States' ambassador to Togo, his car was stolen and his driver was knocked unconscious in an assault in the Lome neighborhood of Be-Gbenyedji.

In November 1997, Yawovi Agboyibo was assaulted in Bafilo before he was to address a meeting of the CAR.

Yawovi Agboyibo said that his assailants were soldiers and that the authorities were responsible.

On 18 April 1998, Yawovi Agboyibo was nominated by the CAR as its candidate for the June 1998 presidential election at a national convention of the party in Lome, becoming the third declared candidate.

In 1999, Yawovi Agboyibo was head of the CAR delegation to the Inter-Togolese Dialogue.

Later in 2001, Yawovi Agboyibo was tried for defamation of Prime Minister Agbeyome Kodjo; he had allegedly defamed Kodjo in 1998 by saying that Kodjo had participated in organizing a militia group while he was director of the Lome port.

On 3 August 2001, Yawovi Agboyibo was sentenced to six months in prison and was fined 100,000 CFA francs.

Yawovi Agboyibo was finally released on Eyadema's orders on 14 March 2002, a decision that Eyadema's office attributed to "the interest of national reconciliation and political appeasement".

Yawovi Agboyibo was general coordinator of the opposition during the April 2005 presidential election; on 23 April, the day before the election, which was marked by violence and accusations of fraud, he denounced the election as "an electoral masquerade".

Yawovi Agboyibo chose not to sit in the National Assembly, leaving his seat to a substitute.

The CAR held an ordinary congress in October 2008, and at the congress Yawovi Agboyibo chose to step down as the President of the CAR; he was replaced by Dodji Apevon.

Yawovi Agboyibo was chosen as the party's candidate for the 2010 presidential election, and he was designated as the Honorary President of the CAR.

On 15 January 2010, Yawovi Agboyibo was formally invested as the CAR's candidate for the 2010 presidential election.

Amidst the election events, Yawovi Agboyibo dedicated a book, Political and Social Governance in Africa, 20 Years After the La Baule Summit: the Case of Togo on 20 February 2010.

Yawovi Agboyibo placed far behind the top two candidates, President Gnassingbe and fellow opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre.

Yawovi Agboyibo died in France at the age of 76 years on Saturday 30 May 2020 following a short illness.