The German colony of
Togoland, formed in 1894, was divided between Britain and France in 1914 as
League of Nations trusts. The British region became part of neighbouring
Ghana on independence in 1957. The French region became independent in 1960 as Togo, with
Sylvanus Olympio as president.
Olympio was killed in an attempted coup d'etat in January 1963, the first post-independence African leader to suffer this fate. I have several times seen it written that the Togo coup was the first in post-independence Africa, but this ignores General Ibrahim Abboud's coup in Sudan in 1958. Olympio was killed taking refuge in the grounds of the US embassy; and his killer was a young officer called Etienne Eyadema.
Nicolas Grunitzky succeeded Olympio and was president from 1963 to 1967, when Eyadema and Kleber Dadjo led a successful coup. Dadjo became "president of the commission for national reconciliation". After a couple of months Eyadema replaced him and was president for almost forty years after, having survived retiring from the military and winning elections as a "civilian" ahem.
When the authenticity jag swept Africa (especially Zaïre, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea) around 1975, Etienne became Gnassingbe. He died in February 2005 and his son Faure Gnassingbe was declared president.