The main building of the Grand marché d’Anié went up in flames overnight, leaving the economic heart of the Plateaux region in ashes while traders could only stand and watch. No lives were lost, but the material toll is staggering: hundreds of families have been ruined overnight, their goods, their stock and their savings reduced to smoke.

Yet beyond the shock and the grief of the victims, this fire is no simple misfortune. It lays bare a state failure and a chronic absence of foresight that define how power is exercised in Lomé.

Why does a market this important still have no fire protection?

How can a market of such strategic importance, in 2026, still lack a modern fire safety system, working water points or clear access routes for emergency crews? The answer lies in the political record of the ruling regime.

Since coming to power in 2005, Faure Gnassingbé’s government has shown itself incapable of durably modernising Togo’s local infrastructure. More than sixty years after his father, the late Gnassingbé Eyadéma, took power, the current executive still operates on structures built in the last century, with no deep investment to adapt them to today’s demographic and economic realities.

The ’emerging Togo’ slogan versus the daily reality of Togolese citizens

While official speeches endlessly praise major construction projects, digitalisation and the attraction of foreign investment, conditions on the ground remain dramatically archaic:

• No prevention: Most of the country’s major markets, from Lomé to Kara and now Anié, remain genuine logistical powder kegs, lacking compliant electrical standards and risk prevention plans.
• Under-equipped emergency services: Firefighters, often alerted late or held back by a lack of suitable equipment outside the capital, can do little more than record the scale of the damage.
• Living off the past: The regime contents itself with the security reputation and political foundations of the previous administration, without building a modern public policy to protect citizens and their property.

The stakes: a clean break from neglect, or another repeat tragedy

After the historic fires that destroyed major markets in Lomé and Kara in recent years, the Anié disaster proves that no lesson has been learned. The Togolese state cannot limit itself to sending ministerial delegations to hand out supplies or promise symbolic aid after every catastrophe.

A government’s real responsibility is to protect its citizens beforehand. By leaving informal-sector economic actors to work in vulnerable, ageing infrastructure, the regime exposes the limits of a worn-out political model, more concerned with its own survival than with the safety and well-being of the Togolese people.

By Boureima Amadou — Reporter