Arift between Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe, and his half brother Kpatcha Gnassingbe has officially come to the open.

Kpatcha Gnassingbe was arrested last Wednesday 15 April as he sought asylum at the U.S. embassy following a gunbattle at his house in Lome on Sunday 12 April in which at least two people were killed and three others wounded.

Togolese authorities have put on display an arms cache said to have been part of a coup plot, which was allegedly found in the house of the president's brother. The weapons include assault rifles, AK-47s, military vehicles, tear-gas grenades and bullet-proof vests.

The chief state prosecutor Robert Bakaï said Kpatcha Gnassingbe would be charged with rebellion and illegal possession of heavy weapons to threaten the state.

But Kpatcha Gnassingbe has denied plotting to overthrow his brother and has said he was the victim of an assassination attempt.

The government has said that Kpatcha Gnassingbe was one of the main organisers of a plot to overthrow the government. Five senior army officers and several other officials close to Kpatcha have been taken in for questioning.

President Faure Gnassingbe 43, who was elected in 2005, cancelled a trip to China on Sunday after the shootout. He became president after the death of his father, Togo's veteran leader Gnassingbe Eyadema in 2005.

For more than a year there has been speculation that Kpatcha Gnassingbe was not on good terms with the president. Relations went sour when the president fired his brother as defence minister during a cabinet reshuffle without explanation in 2007.

President Faure Gnassingbe has expressed deep shock adding that "the coup bid is not only a crime against the constitution and the laws of the republic but also an outrage against the people of Togo". He has said justice will be carried out "firmly against the perpetrators and their accomplices".

Observers believe that the allegations of the coup plot may deal a serious blow to the political stability of Togo. Elected to parliament in October 2007, Kpatcha Gnassingbe is a heavyweight of the ruling party the "Togolese People's Rally(RPT). The family feud risks introducing an ethnic dimension between the two brothers as the president's mother is from the Ewe group in southern Togo, while his sibling's mother is from the Kabye people in the north.

With less than a year to go for presidential election in 2010, the open feud between two brothers of late Eyadema's family could threaten not only the unity of their family but also that of the ruling party over which Faure Gnassingbe enjoys considerable popularity. The RPT could be fragilised and fragmented creating a favourable situation for the main opposition party the Union of Forces for Change (UFC) of veteran opposition leader, Gilchrist Olympio, (son of the first Togolese President Sylvanus Olympio, assassinated in a coup d'etat led by Gnassingbe Eyadema on 13 January 1963). Gilchrist Olympio who is flagbearer of his party for the up coming presidential election, has called on his militants to mobilise and end forty years of mismanagement and gross violation of human rights. He has condemned the electoral law and the constitution which he considers as undemocratic.

The way the present crisis of heritage among the Eyadema siblings is managed will greatly determine the future of the Togolese nation.

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