Early Life, Business Career, and Early Political Career
Olympio was born in Lomé in December 1936. He was educated in Ghana at Achimota School and at the Kumasi University of Technology now renamed Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He further studied mathematics and philosophy in the United Kingdom, attending successively the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in economics. He started his career at the United Nations, working on fiscal and financial studies for the Organization from 1963 to 1964, and then went on to work as an economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 1964 to 1970. After these early years in America, Mr. Olympio returned to Africa where he joined Lonrho as one of its senior business development managers. Mr. Olympio later became a very successful businessman with interests in various companies throughout West Africa. But throughout this time, he also gained more and more exposure as an outspoken critic and political opponent of the Togolese regime. He was sentenced to death twice in absentia by the regime of Gnassingbé Eyadéma. After he was accused of plotting a coup together with other opponents based in Ghana, a warrant was issued for his arrest on 13 July 1979, but the Regime could not imprison him because he was not in Togo. The regime attempted to kidnap him and to have him arrested abroad on several occasions but failed, as Mr. Olympio received the protection of various countries including successively, the United Kingdom, France and Ghana.
Read more about this topic: Gilchrist Olympio
Famous quotes containing the words early, business, political and/or career:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“I do not claim that all women, or a large portion of them, should enter into independent business relations with the world, but I do claim that all women should cultivate and respect in themselves an ability to make money.”
—Ellen Demarest (1824–1898)
“Our political problem now is “Can we, as a nation, continue together permanentlyforever—half slave, and half free?” The problem is too mighty for me. May God, in his mercy, superintend the solution.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)