IRIA News

Military officers of the oil-rich francophone African nation, Gabon, seized power on August 30, 2023, placing President Ali Bongo Ondimba under house arrest. The military coup was initiated after the country’s election body announced that Bongo had won the election for the third time in a row on August 26.

Representatives of Gabon’s armed forces declared the cancellation of the recent election results that were in favor of the ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba.

The military imposed a state of emergency throughout the country, closed borders, and dissolved state institutions after the tense voting that was set to extend Bongo’s rule over the poverty-struck nation for the third time. The Bongo family has ruled Gabon for more than half a century.

Ali Bongo has been accused of election fraud and corruption since he began ruling the poverty-stricken nation nearly 14 years ago. The 64-year-old ousted president’s last public appearance was on the election day. Ali Bongo took the presidential seat in 2009 following his father Omar Bongo, who ruled the country since 1967.

#Gabon: Ali Bongo depuis sa résidence pic.twitter.com/NMmvIbsbwe

— Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala (@StanysBujakera) August 30, 2023

The opposition to the Bongo family’s rule claims that their governments have done little to share the wealth of the country’s state oil and mining with the 2.3 million people. A similar wave of violence and opposition erupted in 2016 when Ali Bongo took over the presidential office for the second time while another foiled attempt of a military coup took place in 2019.

Within hours of the military takeover, the country’s top military leadership met in the state capital Libreville, and the former head of the presidential guard appointed General Brice Oligui Nguema as the country’s ruling president with a unanimous vote. The announcement of Nguema’s appointment was made through a televised statement.

The statement was released by the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions, a self-appointed committee made up of the country’s high-ranking military officers. The statement said that the country faced “a severe institutional, political, economic, and social crisis”, hence the election results are not credible.

The statement also said that the president’s son, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, and other members of the Bongo family including high-ranking government officials have been arrested for corruption and treason. The government has not released any statement so far.

Political turmoil in West and Central Africa

After Mali, Niger, Guinea, Chad, and Burkina Faso, the wave of military takeovers in Africa’s francophone countries has now reached Gabon, pushing the Western and Central African nations into a state of turmoil. Gabon has become the eighth African country to undergo a military takeover in a span of three years.

Unlike Niger and other countries from the Sahel region, Gabon lies further south on the Atlantic coast. The country is relatively more stable in terms of security issues and has not been subjected to Islamic radicalism as much as its northern neighbors.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the African Union condemned the events and called on the military to ensure the safety of Bongo and his family, while China and Russia said they hoped for a swift return to stability. The United States said the situation was deeply concerning.

The wave of military coups has also created more difficulties for France, which is one of the major stakeholders in the region being the former colonizer.  France has about 350 troops in Gabon. Its forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso after coups there in the last two years.

“We condemn the military coup and recall our commitment to free and transparent elections,” French government spokesman Olivier Veran said.

Gabon produced more than 200,000 barrels of oil daily. Most of this oil is being produced by France’s Total Energies and Anglo-French company Perenco. The destabilized political situation poses a great threat to France’s African-based oil industry which is already facing severe downfall in the region.