Hôtel du 2 Février

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Hôtel du 2 Février in Lomé, Togo
View over Lomé with the Hôtel du 2 Février

The Hôtel du 2 Février is a hotel in the Togolese capital Lomé and is by far the tallest building in the city with 38 floors and a height of over 100 m.

The hotel got its name ( Hotel of February 2 ) on February 2, 1974, when the long-time Togolese dictator Gnassingbé Eyadéma returned to Lomé as the only survivor of a plane crash on January 24 near Sarakawa . Another hotel, also built in Lomé in 1980, bears the name of the place of this disaster, which is strongly glorified and mystified in the cult of the dictator: the Sarakawa Hotel .

The hotel is located in the political center of Lomé, on Independence Square, opposite the RPT party headquarters next to the West African Central Bank (BCEAO) building in Togo. It was completed in June 1980 and the construction cost was around 35 billion CFA francs. The state was financed from the income from the Togolese phosphate extraction , which was also used to finance other major projects. One reason for the establishment was Eyadéma's efforts to bring the Organization for African Unity (OAU) from Addis Ababa to Lomé, for which he created an appropriate hotel infrastructure. Since the efforts were unsuccessful, the hotel was oversized and did not generate any profits. Similar to other projects implemented in Togo, the hotel is sometimes referred to as the white elephant : an investment whose costs far outweigh the benefits. Even the costs of building maintenance sometimes exceeded the income from hotel operations, delayed or no salary payments to employees were not uncommon. The building also represented a symbol of political dominance of the Eyadéma government and as such was slightly damaged as a target in a series of bomb attacks on August 21, 1985, shortly before the visit of Pope John Paul II .

In 2000, the hotel was the venue for the 36th OAU conference, and a loan from the Libyan investor Libyan Arab African Investment Company was taken out for necessary repairs . Since the loan was not repaid, in an agreement between the Togolese state and the Libyan society in March 2006, the hotel was overwritten for the value of the loan.

In November 2014, after years of neglect, the skyscraper was nationalized by law. In 2015 it was announced that funding of 28 billion CFA francs (43 million euros) through the West African Development Bank (BOAD) had been found for repairs and that the building would continue as the Radisson Blu Hotel 2 Fevrier, Lomé . The hotel reopened in April 2016 and has 320 hotel rooms and 4 restaurants .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c L'hôtel 2 février cédé au groupe Corinthia Hotels International. May 8, 2002, accessed May 7, 2008 (French).
  2. ↑ George BN Ayittey: Africa Betrayed . St. Martin's Press, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-312-10400-9 , pp. 239 .
  3. ↑ Daniel Künzler: Where the elephants dance, the grass suffers . LIT Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8258-7544-2 , p. 264 .
  4. ^ Helm, Renate: Political rule in Togo: The problem of democratization . In: Rainer Tetzlaff and Cord Jakobeit (eds.): Democracy and Development . tape 56 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8258-7785-9 , pp. 133 .
  5. ↑ Libyans buy and refurbish the "Hotel du 2 Fevrier" . In: La Tribune, economique du Togo . Maisons-Alfort, France May 2006 ( izf.net [PDF; accessed May 8, 2008]).
  6. ↑ Le Togo nationalize l'hôtel 2 février . In: Jeune Afrique . November 10, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2017.
  7. ↑ Togo: 28 milliards de F CFA pour l'hôtel du 2 Février . In: Jeune Afrique . August 13, 2015. Retrieved June 15, 2017.
  8. ↑ Radisson Blu Hotel 2 Fevrier Lomé . In: radissonblu.com . Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  9. ^ Rénové, the Radisson Blu Hôtel du "2 Février" ouvre ses portes à Lomé . In: Jeune Afrique . April 27, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2017.

Coordinates: 6 ° 7 ′ 42.5 ″  N , 1 ° 12 ′ 53.5 ″  E