By Nick Tattersall

LOME (Reuters) - Togo's new president flew to Nigeria on Thursday for hastily-arranged talks but failed to achieve a quick breakthrough in a crisis that has triggered riots and raised fears for the former French colony's future.

Faure Gnassingbe was named president on Feb. 5 to succeed his deceased father, in violation of the constitution. Both the constitution and the electoral code were changed the next day to allow Gnassingbe, 39, to rule unchallenged until 2008.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairman of the 53-member African Union, has been leading calls for the tiny West African nation to reverse those changes and hold presidential polls, as stipulated in its original constitution.

"We have taken advice from President Obasanjo so it's normal that we should evaluate that before we take a decision. But if we want to respect the constitution we have to move fast," said Togo's Communication Minister Pitang Tchalla.

He said an address to the nation by Gnassingbe, initially planned for Wednesday, would not take place on Thursday either.

African leaders have called the abrupt change of power a military coup and at least four opposition demonstrators have been killed in two days of violent clashes with Togo's security forces in the capital Lome.

Nigerian officials said the trip was to find an amicable solution to the crisis. However the Togolese team left straight after lunch following about two hours of talks and Obasanjo's spokeswoman Remi Oyo said it had been only an exchange of views.

"No issue of elections was discussed. The Togolese authorities said they heard President Obasanjo's advice which was they should reconcile their position to retrace their steps to the position of constitutionality," she said.

"This was not a negotiating meeting, so the question of having an agreement or not did not even arise."

FAMILY MEETING

Mohamed ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States, Togolese officials and Nigeria's foreign and African affairs ministers also attended.

"It is a family meeting in a situation when the family needs to put its head together and do what is right, how it is right and when it is right," Obasanjo said at the start of the talks.

While Togolese government officials have said they are prepared to hold presidential elections within 60 days, there has been no official confirmation on this from Gnassingbe, nor on whether he would step aside ahead of any poll.

Togo's constitution still states the head of the national assembly should take over after the death of Gnassingbe Eyadema, who seized power in a coup in 1967 to become Africa's longest serving ruler and crushed any opposition.

But to legitimize the army's appointment of Gnassingbe, parliament quickly elected him as head of the national assembly, replacing the former speaker who was stuck in neighboring Benin and making Gnassingbe the legal heir to his father.

Parliament also removed a clause in the constitution stating that polls should be held within 60 days in the event of the president's death.

Most university teachers started a two-day strike on Thursday in Lome to protest against the appointment.

One of the four protesters killed in the clashes with security forces, a 35-year-old painter called Jean Kossi Dadzie, was buried on Thursday in Lome.

His family says he was shot dead by paramilitary commandos as he tried to move a barricade erected by demonstrators in front of his house in the opposition stronghold of Be.

"We are all ready to die. When they've finished us all, let's see who's left for them to govern," said Adjoa, the cousin of Dadzie's pregnant widow.

(Additional reporting by Tom Ashby in Lagos, Felix Onuah in Abuja and John Zodzi in Lome)

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