Background
Benoit Malou was born on 1932, at Pya, in the Lam Kara area of northern Togo, Eyadema s home village.
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Benoit Malou
Edit ProfileEducation
He went first to a mission school and then trained as a teacher in Lome, taking his certificate in 1952. From 1953 to 1957 he taught at Farende and Lome, then at the Protes tant seminary at Atakpame. In 1958 he entered the police training school of the Mali Federation in Dakar, but with the break-up of the federation he returned to Togo, where he served with the National Security office in Lotne Sokode and Atakpame, before becoming Assistant Director of National Society in August 1963.
Career
November that year, he and another minister resigned from the government apparently over the continuous cabinet feuding between Grunitzky and Vice-President Meatchi. This was the event which precipitated the crisis in which mass demonstrations in Lome threatened to bring down the government, until Eyadema, then army head, refused to act. Malou was reportedly arrested for a time for being in contact with the leaders of the demonstration, whose party ticket he had for a time shared.
When Eyadema overthrew Grunitzky in January 1967, Malou was a member of the Committee of National Reconciliation with responsibilities for Information and the Interior. After Eyadema assumed full powers in April 1967, Malou was made Minister for the Civil Service, Works and Social Affairs, and in August 1969 he was moved to Education. He is also a member of the Bureau Politique of the Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais (RPT) founded in the same month.
Personality
A nephew of President Eyadema, he has been one of the key men in the Togo government since 1967, and one of the President’s closest advisers. Even before Eyadema came to power, Malou was if the government, and played a key role in the events leading up to the fall of Grunitzky.
