Gabon: Ali Bongo swept away by a putsch

The third African putsch of the year carried away, Wednesday morning, the president of Gabon Ali Bongo. The military took power with a kind of ease that came as no surprise to many. “No one is happy, but this kind of regime could only go like this,” says Jean Gaspard Ntoutoume Ayi, a lifelong opponent.

In the middle of the night, the Gabonese Election Center had given Ali Bongo the winner, with 64.27% of the votes, of the presidential election organized on Sunday. The hour and the haste show the lack of serenity of power. A few hours later, twelve soldiers and a civilian appeared on television. In a choreography that has become commonplace, they announce "to put an end to the regime in place". “To this end, the general elections of August 26, 2023 as well as the truncated results are canceled”, explains Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi, spokesperson for the Committee for the Transition and the Restoration of Institutions (CTRI), the name of the junta, denouncing "irresponsible governance" and announcing the dissolution of all institutions.

The origin of the blow was not a mystery for long. The putschists' message was broadcast on the screens of the Gabon 24 television channel, housed within the presidency itself. One of the leaders of the Republican Guard, the GR, the regime's praetorians, is also among the soldiers, his green beret on his head. The deposed prince, Ali Bongo, 64, appears, a little haggard, seeming not to understand the situation, in a video posted on social networks. In hesitant English he appeals to “friends around the world to tell them to make noise” “against people who arrested (me). A cry for help that no one will answer.

Almost immediately, General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the head of the Republican Guard, explains to Le Monde that the president has been "retired", refusing to speak about his personal intentions. “He enjoys all his rights. He is a normal Gabonese, like everyone else, ”said the officer, even if the ousted president was placed under house arrest with his wife and his doctors. It is barely 3 p.m. and coup is confirmed. The future remains to be defined.

On the internet, just restored after being suspended on Saturday evening, videos are circulating where we see General Nguema cheered by his troops, carried in triumph. “Oligui president”, we can hear, a way of confirming the involvement of the soldier and the GR in the coup. On X (formerly Twitter), the CTRI announced that it had promoted General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Guard, to its leadership. As required by the “jurisprudence” of the putschs in West Africa, he was appointed head of the transition. A meeting was underway Wednesday evening in Libreville, which could lead to a speech on television in the coming days.

The reasons for this pronunciamiento remain mysterious, but are undoubtedly due to internal disputes within the Bongo clan. A brutal dispute between the "big families" and the presidential entourage accused of de facto leading the country since the serious stroke that hit Ali Bongo in 2018, leaving him very weak. A palace revolution rather than a real putsch. The course of General Oligui Nguema pleads in this direction. The man, if he is still young, is not a stranger but a man of the seraglio. Originally from Haut-Ogooué, the stronghold of the Bongos, he would be a member of the family through his mother, a quality in this nepotic world. This proximity had also allowed him to work for Omar Bongo. Several other “young people” would be on these sides.

By contrast, Noureddin Bongo-Valentin, Ali's son, was arrested along with at least six special advisers to the deposed head of state, all accused of "treason against state institutions". These men, nicknamed "the young guard", are accused by the opposition and civil society of having become the real leaders of the country. They concentrated the anger stoked by a deeply unjust system for decades.

The Gabonese, they wonder less and rejoice openly. In the working-class Plein-Ciel district of Libreville, a small crowd shouted their joy at dawn. “It’s the liberation!”, “Bongo out!”, applauding the passing of the soldiers. In Port-Gentil, the economic capital, on the Place du Château-d’eau located in a working-class district and traditional bastion of the opposition, hundreds of people honked their horns, shouting: “Gabon is liberated.”