The institution we have created for ourselves has stood the test of time, despite the storms and hurricanes that it has had to brave. It has held fir… - Étienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma

Despite its imperfections and shortcomings, I think that the United Nations is irreplaceable, but we must do everything possible to enhance its impact and influence.

I would like to take this solemn opportunity to once again appeal to the friendly nations of Africa, such as the United States, so that, like the aid granted to the Eastern countries, they set up a real Marshall plan in favor of the African Continent. Just as in the past, I'm quite sure that Togo can rely on your country, to which it is bound by links of friendship and cooperation covering not only agricultural, social, and political sectors but cultural ones as well.

Famous for his lavish gifts to visitors and his obliviousness to calls for human rights, Eyadema helped institutionalise the image of the African despot in dark glasses who named the streets of Togo's capital, Lomé, after red-letter dates in his life.