Young Africans want more democracy

ONE DAY in January Comlan Hugues Sossoukpe awoke before dawn in Lomé, the capital of Togo, and slipped across the frontier to a safe house in Benin. It was only the second time he had been in his home country since May, when he fled after being charged with “breaching public order”. His apparent crime: writing about how troops loyal to Patrice Talon, Benin’s president, shot peaceful protesters.The 33-year-old—eloquent, passionate, tired—explains that activism is a family trait. His father spent years on the run and three uncles were sent to labour camps for opposing the dictatorship of Mathieu Kérékou, one of dozens of autocrats who bestrode Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. His relatives fought for Benin’s trailblazing shift to multi-party elections in 1991, a move that was replicated by most African countries by the end of the decade. “I consider myself a child of democracy,” he says.