On 30 August 2023, shortly after winning a controversial election, the army in Gabon, led by Gen Brice Oligui Nguema, ousted 64-year-old President Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of late President Omar Bongo. Bongo Senior led the country for 42 years before bequeathing the helm to his heir apparent. Together, the father and son led the tiny oil-rich nation of 2.3 million people for 56 years. Following his ouster on that fateful Wednesday, stroke-stricken Ali Bongo sent the following SOS to his friends around the world: “I’m Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon and I’m to send a message to all the friends that we have all over the world to tell them to make noise, for the people here have arrested me and my family. My son is somewhere, my wife is in another place and I’m at the residence. Right now, I’m at the residence and nothing is happening. I don’t know what’s going on, so, I’m calling you to make noise, make noise, to make noise, really”, a desperate Ali Bongo urged in a short video.
However, the only noise made was that of cheering crowds on the streets of Libreville, the national capital, to celebrate their liberation from the 56-year Bongo Dynasty.
Gabon – a former French territory, gained independence in 1960. Apart from Leon M’ba, the country’s first post-independence president who died in office in November 1967, Omar Bongo and his son, Ali, have been the only two other elected presidents to have led Gabon. Two acting presidents interspersed the father and son’s administrations for 35 and 128 days, respectively, during the transitional period following Omar’s death in office in 2009. After the 2009 and 2016 polls, Ali Bongo won a third disputed term, after his first two seven-year terms, in the 26 August 2023 election, just before his overthrow by the army, who said the poll was not credible and that the country faced a “severe institutional” crisis.
Bongo Junior, a fan of Michael Jackson, American music and jazz, released his own nine-track solo funk album ‘A Brand New Man’ in 1978. “Thought that it was cool, breaking all the rules,” he crooned in one of the tracks, “I wanna stay with you”. That was long before his political sojourn. Despite trying strenuously to distance himself from his father’s oil-fuelled opulence and extravagance by cutting down the number of ministers and capping salaries for officials managing state businesses, U.S. diplomats said he still had “the family predilection for fancy cars and other emblems of conspicuous wealth”. Apart from earning international praise for his apparent austere moves, Ali Bongo also got world recognition from, for instance, Prince Charles of the UK, for his commitment to save the rainforest of his country, home to endangered elephants. He banned raw wood exports, enlarged protected areas and demarcated 13 new national parks to combat the illicit wildlife trade and illegal loggers.
Irrespective of Bongo Junior’s efforts, it appears the people of Gabon had had enough of the Bongo name and might have taken inspiration from the coups that preceded Gabon’s. Since August 2020, the coup in Gabon was the eighth in Africa. The Gabon putsch was preceded by a military takeover in Niger on July 26, 2023, when the military announced the overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum. General Abdourahamane Tiani became the new leader of the country. After the Niger coup, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened on August 10 to deploy a regional force to “restore constitutional order” in the francophone country. Before the toppling of Bazoum in Niger, there had been two topplings within a space of eight months in Burkina Faso – Ghana’s northern neighbour. The first ousting occurred on January 24, 2022, when President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was removed from power by the military and Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was subsequently inaugurated president in February of the same year. On September 30, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba, too, was at the receiving end of the bitter putsch pill when he was dismissed by the army and replaced by Captain Ibrahim Traoré as a transitional president until a presidential election scheduled for July 2024. Before Burkina Faso, there was Sudan. On October 25, 2021, soldiers led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane chased out the transitional civilian leaders, who were supposed to lead the country towards democracy after 30 years of dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, himself deposed in 2019. Since April 15, 2023, a power struggle war between General Burhane and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has claimed, at least, 5,000 innocent lives. Ahead of the Sudan coup was that of Guinea. On September 5, 2021, the military overthrew President Alpha Condé and Colonel Mamady Doumbouya became president on October 1, 2021. The military has promised to return the country to civilian rule by the end of 2024. Just as in the case of Burkina Faso, there were two coups in Mali, within nine months before Guinea’s. On August 18, 2020, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was overthrown by the military, and a transitional government was formed in October. However, on May 24, 2021, the military arrested the president and the Prime Minister. Colonel Assimi Goïta was inaugurated in June as transitional president. The junta has committed itself to return the country to civilian rule after the elections scheduled for February 2024. Apart from Sudan, the other coups happened in Francophone West African and Central African (Gabon) countries.
Curiously, Gabon’s military government’s new leader, General Brice Clothaire Oligui Nguema, is Bongo’s cousin and commander-in-chief of the Gabonese Republican Guard – the country’s most powerful security force, thus, suggesting a family feud could be the coup trigger – very typical of dynasties and kingdoms where brothers go at each other, even to the death, to claim the throne. And for a family that entrenched itself through patronage, awarding lucrative roles in government to allies and extended family, such feuds would be commonplace. The situation gets even more complicated when a powerful external force such as France, is involved in the background. In cases of such nature, the sins of the father are easily visited on the son, as well. Under Omar Bongo, who won 100 per cent of some elections, such as the 1986 presidential poll, with an apparent 99.9 per cent voter turnout, the Central African nation’s oil wealth was recirculated among the elite to ensure loyalty. Omar’s regime extended Bongo family jobs into the military, parliament and state commerce. The current president of the constitutional court, Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo was Omar’s alleged former lover. Also, Big Brother France loomed large under the Francafrique systems, in which French corporations maintained good relations with Francophone African politicians to benefit from lucrative resource deals. Those who play ball are allowed to stay in office until they go astray.
