General Gnassingbé Eyadéma (born Étienne Eyadéma, December 26, 1935 – February 5, 2005), was the President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. He participated in two successful military coups, in January 1963 and January 1967, and became President on April 14, 1967. As President, he created a political party, the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), and headed a single-party regime until the early 1990s, when reforms leading to multiparty elections began. Although his power was seriously challenged by the events of the early 1990s, he ultimately consolidated power again and won multiparty presidential elections in 1993, 1998, and 2003; the opposition boycotted the 1993 election and denounced the 1998 and 2003 election results as fraudulent. At the time of his death, Eyadéma was the longest-serving ruler in Africa.

Eyadéma was born on the 26th of December 1935 in Pya, a village in the prefecture of Kozah in the Kara Region, to a peasant family in the Kabye tribe. According to Comi M. Toulabor, his official date of birth is “based on a fertile imagination” and it would be more accurate to say that he was born around 1930. In 1953, Eyadema joined the French army where he was trained in weapon use and the art of war. Eyadema participated in the French Indochina War and the Algerian War. After nearly 10 years in the French army, Eyadema returned to Togo in 1962. In 1963, he conducted a military coup against President Sylvanus Olympio, who died during the attack. He helped establish Nicolas Grunitzky as the new President of Togo. In 1967, Colonel Eyadema of the Togolese Army led a second military coup against Grunitzky. Eyadema installed himself as president on 14 April 1967 as well as Minister of National Defense, an office that he assumed for 38 years.

Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé (born June 6, 1966) is a Togolese politician who has been the President of Togo since May 4, 2005. A son of President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, he was appointed to the government by his father, serving as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications from 2003 to 2005. When Eyadéma died on February 5, 2005, Gnassingbé was immediately installed as President with support from the army. Doubts regarding the constitutional legitimacy of the succession led to heavy regional pressure being placed on Gnassingbé, and he resigned on February 25. He then won a controversial presidential election on April 24, 2005, and was sworn in as President again.

Gnassingbé is the National President of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), the ruling political party. He was re-elected for a second term as President of Togo in 2010.

Born in Afagnan in Lacs Prefecture, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé was one of Gnassingbé Eyadéma's many children; his mother was Séna Sabine Mensah. Faure received his secondary education in Lomé before studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, where he received a degree in financial business management; he subsequently obtained a Master of Business Administration degree from The George Washington University in the United States. He was elected to the National Assembly of Togo in the October 2002 parliamentary election as a Deputy for Blitta, and in the National Assembly he was coordinator of the commission in charge of privatization.^{[citation needed]} On July 29, 2003 he was appointed as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications, serving in that position until becoming President in February 2005.