Religious Activism on Campuses in Togo and Benin: Christian and Muslim Students Navigating Authoritarianism and Laïcité, 1970–2023

Although religious organisations have coexisted with student unions at the Université de Lomé and the Université d'Abomey-Calavi since the 1970s, much of the literature has tended to focus on the role of student protests in triggering national conferences in Benin and Togo in the early 1990s, overlooking religion. Based on interviews with different generations of activists and the press in both countries, this book uncovers the neglected history of Christian and Muslim student associations on these campuses, originally strongholds of leftist, anti-imperialist and secular ideologies. It analyses the emergence of these associations under a one-party dictatorship in Togo and a Marxist-Leninist regime in Benin, and explores the implications of growing religiosity for these public universities as secular institutions.

The history of these associations reveals the campus as a microcosm reflecting wider national socio-political life, while also highlighting the importance of translocal factors in shaping the internal dynamics of these groups. Amidst the massification of university enrolments and rising graduate unemployment in recent decades, faith-based associations have come to offer more than religious guidance. Increasingly, they offer a "social curriculum", providing a space for socialisation and a set of skills, norms and moral values that complement the secular academic curriculum.