THEY KILLED HIM OVER A COIN.

THEY KILLED HIM OVER A COIN.

THEY KILLED HIM OVER A COIN.

There are a thousand ways to stop a currency.

France chose a soldier.

No trial.
No warning.
A president dead three feet from an embassy gate.

Sylvanus Olympio had said no.

Twice.

The first no was to the army.

Olympio kept Togo’s military tiny.

Two hundred fifty men.

But veterans wanted in.

These men had fought for France.

Now demobilized.

No place in his army.

Sergeant Étienne Eyadéma asked to join. September 1962.

Olympio said no.

On January 7, 1963, the request came again.

Olympio tore it up.

The second no was to the money.

In 1962, Olympio created a Togolese central bank.

A Togolese currency.

Not the CFA franc.

Backed by the Deutsche Mark.

Creating alternatives.

Money is power you can put in your pocket.

Olympio wanted more of it in Togo.

Jacques Foccart said it plainly:

“Sylvanus Olympio was not one of our friends.”

On January 10, 1963, Olympio annulled his currency negotiations.

Next stage due January 15.

Done waiting.

Three days later, the soldiers came.

Shortly after midnight, gunfire across Lomé.

Seventy soldiers surrounded the palace.

No pistol.

Only an old hunting gun.

He leaped from a window, scaled the wall into the American embassy, and crawled beneath a sedan.

His wife Dina saw him.

She rushed toward the gate.

Soldiers stopped her.

She broke past.

Then she heard the shots.

Pah. Pah. Pah.

At the gate, Olympio lay on the ground.

Red finger smears on the metal, as if pulling himself up.

The ambassador found him three feet from the entrance.

French-trained veterans.

The French ambassador knew.

He told the American ambassador where Olympio was hiding.

After that call, the soldiers entered.

Seven hours later, they found him.

Eyadéma claimed he pulled the trigger.

Ruled Togo for thirty-eight years.

His son still rules.

And the coin?

It was never minted.

Togo stayed in the CFA zone.

Olympio’s bank dissolved.

The January 15 arrangements never happened.

France blocked investigation.

That was never just about one man.

About whether a former French colony could control its own money.

Sovereignty reaches the treasury.

The central bank.

The currency.

The right to decide.

France withdrew from Guinea with the light bulbs.

From Togo, it withdrew something quieter.

The right to print your own money.

Taken with a bullet.

Remember the coin.

Not his most important goal.

It made the stakes visible.

He wanted a Togolese currency.

A soldier made sure it never existed.

History remembers the currencies that survived.

We remember the coin that never existed.