Ghana-Togo border closed for five hours

...as Exiled Togo opposition leader returns to acclaim by 20,000


About 7,000 travellers at both sides of the Ghana - Togo were stranded for about five hours on Saturday, following the closure of the Togolese side by border officials from 10 o'clock in the morning to Three o'clock in the afternoon

This followed the entry of the exiled Togolese Opposition Leader, Mr Gilchrist Olympio, from Ghana to Togo.

About 500 supporters and officials of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), which he leads, were also stranded at Aflao while Mr Olympio proceeded to Lome to process his papers to contest Togo's Presidential Election scheduled for June 1, this year.

Security sources at the border told Ghana News Agency (GNA) that Mr Olympio, exiled from both France and the United Kingdom was allowed to cross from Aflao to Lome after a brief hold up and spent about five hours at the Arrival Hall on the Togolese side of the border.

The Togolese leader returned to Aflao about 5.30 in the evening on his way to Accra.

Exiled Togo opposition leader returns to acclaim by 20,000

Gilchrist Olympio, Togo's exiled opposition leader and a candidate in a forthcoming presidential election, was feted by more than 20,000 fans on his return to the west African state yesterday.

Olympio, main challenger to incumbent President Gnassingbe Eyadema in the June 1 poll, crossed the frontier from neighbouring Ghana after four years of exile. The head of the main opposition group, called Union of Forces for Change, is the son of former president Sylvanus Olympio, assassinated in 1963.

He has not been in Togo since 1999 for security reasons, according to his entourage. Olympio has been several times sentenced to death in absentia and was wounded in an attempt on his life in Togo in 1992.