Togo: A directionless opposition faced with the rise of political influencers

The Togolese opposition, embodied in particular by Jean-Pierre Fabre's Alliance nationale pour le changement (ANC), is once again unmasked by its inability to organize a coherent and credible protest. Lacking a clear vision and solid leadership, it is leaving the field open to disorganized, frameless influencers, who are multiplying actions with no real impact and at the cost of palpable confusion.

The attempts at digital mobilization that have emerged in recent days in Lomé, widely relayed on TikTok, X or WhatsApp, have nothing to do with a revolution. Rather, they are the symptom of an opposition in disarray, unable to federate its own militants and channel popular demands. The limited scope of these spontaneous movements belies the illusion of mass mobilization on social networks.

Rather than supporting a structured, responsible and credible political protest, ANC leaders seem powerless, content to criticize this "digital agitation" without drawing any real lessons from it. This discrepancy between digital technology and social reality borders on a disconcerting political impotence.

Worse still, this lack of clear leadership has left the way open for often anonymous influencers to impose their personal agendas to the detriment of coherent collective action. This phenomenon shows that when political cadres are unable to assume their role, dispersed and unstructured forces take over, at the risk of diluting demands and playing into the hands of the regime in power.

In short, this opposition without a compass is condemning itself to failure, having failed to anticipate and organize an effective mobilization. Influencers have merely taken advantage of a strategic vacuum that now allows them to express themselves, without any real reach, but with an inordinate amount of visibility.

The ANC and its allies now have a simple choice: regain a real political vision and build on solid foundations, or continue to lose themselves in pointless digital protests, which only serve to reinforce the legitimacy of the regime they claim to be fighting.

The defender