Born in Faranah in 1922, Sékou Touré was one of the main architects of Guinea’s independence before becoming its first president of the republic in 1958.
From an early age, Sékou Touré, who came from his maternal branch of Samory Touré, was sent to Koranic and French school. A student at the technical school in Conakry, Sekou was expelled there for leading a protest once morest school food.
In the 1940s, before the independence of Guinea, Sékou worked for the postal service (PTT) where, in 1945, he became the general secretary of the postal workers’ union.
In front of Charles de Gaulle, in August 1958, Sékou Touré pronounces his sentence which has become cult “We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery”. He thus calls on the population to vote “No” for the community proposed by France, so on October 2, 1958, Guinea gained independence and Sékou became the first president of the Republic of Guinea.
Thus begins 26 years of unchallenged dictatorship, which killed tens of thousands of people in the sinister Camp Boiro.
Hero for some and tyrant for others, Sékou Touré died on March 26, 1984 in Cleveland in the United States of a short illness. The Military Committee for National Recovery thus took power and brought Colonel Lansana Conté to power.
