Togolese nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Togo, as amended; the Togolese Nationality Code, and its revisions; the Code of Persons and Family; the Children's Code; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Togo. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. Togolese nationality is typically obtained under the principal of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Togo or abroad to parents with Togolese nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.
Acquisition of nationality Nationality can be acquired in Togo at birth or later in life through naturalization.
By birth Those who acquire nationality at birth include:
Children born in Togo who are habitual residents in the country to two parents also born in Togo; Children born abroad to a Togolese father acquire nationality automatically; Children born to a Togolese mother and a father who is unknown, or with unknown nationality or who is stateless, must follow an administrative procedure to acquire nationality; Children born in the country who would otherwise be stateless; or Foundlings or orphans under the age of five, whose parents are unknown.
By naturalization Naturalization can be granted to persons who have resided in the territory for a sufficient period of time to confirm they understand one of the languages of Togo, the customs and traditions of Togo, and are integrated into the society. General provisions are that applicants have good character and morals; have no criminal convictions which resulted in sentencing in excess of two years; are in good mental and physical health; and have a principal interest in the development of Togo. Applicants must typically have resided in the country for five years. Besides foreigners meeting the criteria, other persons who may be naturalized include:
Children born in Togo to foreigners who are resident at majority and have lived in Togo since the age of sixteen may opt for nationality by registration without discretion of authorities; Children legally adopted by a Togolese parent, at the time of completion of a legal adoption may derive Togolese nationality, if it is in the child's best interest; Children can be automatically naturalized when their parent acquires nationality; The legal or customary wife of a Togolese national upon marriage; or Persons who have performed exceptional service to the nation may naturalize without a residency period.
Loss of nationality Togolese nationals can renounce their nationality pending approval by the state and proof that they have obtained other nationality. Persons may be denaturalized in Togo for holding dual nationality, though in practice this applies only to naturalized Togolese. They may also lose their nationality for performing actions, like voting or running for political office, in another state that are typically reserved for citizens; working for a foreign state or military without permission of Togolese authorities; disloyalty to the state; committing crimes against the state or state security; for ordinary serious crimes; or for fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment in a naturalization petition. Persons who previously had nationality who were not deprived of it may repatriate after establishing residency and undergoing an administrative inquiry.
Dual nationality Togolese law prohibits dual nationality, but in practice only naturalized persons who must renounce other nationality to gain Togolese nationality, are strictly forbidden to have other nationality. Dual nationality is also allowed for married women who automatically acquired other nationality upon marriage to a foreign spouse.
History The Ewe people in the south, and Gurma and Kabye peoples in the north, along with other tribal people settled in the region without much contact with each other. They did not develop centralized political structures and mainly participated in subsistence economies organized in small villages. Neighboring kingdoms like the Ashanti Empire to the west and Dahomey to the east constantly posed threats with invasions. Between 1471 and 1473, Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pêro Escobar sailed along the coast. The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from the area in the early seventeenth century and Danish, Dutch, English, and French traders engaged in the Atlantic slave trade had begun to frequent the region. Around 1650, people from the Portuguese trading post of El Mina settled in Little Popo (also Klien Popo and Petit Popo). Merchants from Brandenburg established a trading post there but in 1688, the Royal African Company was in charge of the fort there, which would become the only significant coastal port in Togo in the slaving era. The Dutch named the area between the Volta River and the Lagos Lagoon straddling the border between current-day Ghana and Togo as the Slave Coast () in the 1690s. Slave raiders from the Asante Empire and Kingdom of Dahomey became common in the south and central parts of the region during this time. Simultaneously, the north was attacked by the Ghanaian kingdoms of Dagomba and Mamprusi.
From the eighteenth century, the Danes dominated the slave trade on the Togolese coast, and brought in Protestant missionaries to the area. Around 1728, the Royal African Company ceased operations at Little Popo and the Dutch West India Company took over the trading fort in 1731, operating until around 1760. The Danes established a fort there in 1772, but abandoned it in 1790 and Portuguese traders operated at Little Popo between 1780 and 1790 without establishing a trading post. Probably between the late 1770s and early 1780s, Little Popo again was being operated by the British, as they had an agent stationed there in 1789. In 1795, the fort was attacked by troops from Dahomey and the Hulagan Kingdom centered in Grand-Popo, now in Benin, but within a year, trading had resumed. The Danish abolished slavery in 1802 and withdrew from the area in 1850. Both Britain and the United States abolished the slave trade by 1808, which initially adversely effected trade in the first decades of the nineteenth century along the Gold Coast, but the trade continued at Little Popo mainly because other places to trade had been closed until 1852. That year, the British blockaded the port cities along the Slave Coast to stop slaving and signed a treaty with local rulers at Little Popo to end the slave trade.
In the 1850s the North German Missionary Society, of Bremen, became dominant in the territory, leading to German merchants establishing themselves there during the 1860s. The British purchase of Suez Canal shares in 1875 and bombing of Alexandria, Egypt in 1882, as well as France establishing a protectorate in Tunis in 1881, caused German speculation about acquiring its own territory in Africa. Between 1880 and 1884, businesses were established at Baguida, Little Popo and Lomé by firms from Bremen and Hamburg, and other factories dotted the coast of Togoland. In 1882, Adolph Woermann developed a shipping line transporting goods regularly between Hamburg and coastal West Africa. German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, was initially reluctant to support colonization of Africa because of the expense and political climate, but by 1884, he was in favor of growth. When in that year, the German merchants asked him to support them against rival British and French claims, Bismark sent a warship in January and dispatched Gustav Nachtigal to help with negotiations. Nachtigal sailed into Little Popo in February to arrest the King Lawson III, who German merchants claimed was a British agent. He took Lawson and others aboard his ship, and forced Lawson to sign an agreement acknowledging that the German merchants were to pay annual tributes to a rival named Cabocer Quadjovi (also known as Jehowey).
German period (1884–1922) On 4 July 1884 a treaty was signed with Chief Mlapa III of Togoville forming a basis to establish a German Protectorate over the territory, which they named after the village. On 5 July the Germans secured the signature of Chief Plakko to acquire Baguida. King Lawson left Little Popo and went to Accra and then Sierra Leone where he unsuccessfully tried to get the British to create a protectorate over Little Popo, and negotiated with the French as well, but by 1886, he learned that the French had agreed to Germany's establishment of a protectorate. In the meantime, the Germans had signed a treaty with Lawson's rivals, King Aiaushi Agbanor, ruler of Grigi and Little Popo; Quadjovi; Chief Pedro Quadjo; and eleven others to secure the area of Little Popo. Through other agreements, they also secured the territory of Lomé. Under the terms of the agreement reached at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, lands in the interior which had not been agreed as belonging to European powers, required both occupation by a European power and notification of the other signatory powers. Despite competing claims to the Slave Coast, Germany and France worked out an official compromise in 1887. The Germans began negotiations to settle the boundaries between German and British territory in 1885 and agreed to terms in March 1888. These were officially adopted with the signing of the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890. German conquest of the interior of Togoland began around 1893. Though explorers encountered minor conflicts by 1897, Germany had secured the northern part of the territory and selected Lomé, as the capital of the colony.
Under the terms of the German Colonial Act of 1888, German colonies were not part of the federal union, but they were also not considered foreign. Thus, laws that were extended to the colonies sometimes treated residents as nationals and other times as foreigners. German law applied to those subjects who had been born in Germany. Native subjects in the colonies were not considered to be German, but were allowed to naturalize. Naturalization required ten years residence in the territory and proof of self-employment. It was automatically bestowed upon all members of a family, meaning children and wives derived the nationality of the husband. The Nationality Law of 1913 changed the basis for acquiring German nationality from domicile to patrilineality, but did not alter derivative nationality. In 1914 during World War I, British and French forces invaded Togoland and held it throughout the war. In 1919, the territory was partitioned into British Togoland and French Togoland. Three years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, British Togoland was assigned to Britain and French Togoland was assigned to France as League of Nations mandated territories.
French mandate/trusteeship (1922–1960) Native persons residing in Togoland (1922–1956)