GABON COUP NOT A CONTAGION

 

 

One may be a bit careful about the widespread notion of the contagion theory or thesis with regard to the spate of coups in French-speaking West African countries. Gabon presents a unique narrative, context and trigger that should preclude the popular narrative of a coup contagion. In other words, the coup in Gabon took a different pattern.

It is true that jubilation filled the streets of Gabon on hearing the cancellation of the election that led to the re-election of President Ali Bongo for his third term, having served the country for nearly 13 years. There was the footage of the ousted president calling on his friends to make some noise. That means he was obviously not aware of what was going on around him. He lived outside of reality believing that people should go out and fight for him.

People have got to take notice that the contagion to the extent that anything of the sort exists is affecting mostly other French-speaking territories. Gabon, an oil-rich central African country, is in a different league. What happened in this country was quite substantially different from what happened in other French West African territories where there seems to be a break or an attempt at a break with the legacies of French colonialism. Gabon presents a case of a consolidation of French interest rather than fighting against French interest.

Gabon, for its population, is quite a wealthy country. Libreville is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and Gabon is in the heart of the Congo Basin, with abundance of nature. But the Bongos have turned one of the most blessed and beautiful countries on earth into their private estate and strangulated the entire place. The Bongo family belongs to the school of thought that believes in Francafrique, a system or philosophy that gives France the leeway to pillage and abuse the former colonies unchecked.

Coups should be seen in line with the internal contradictions in the countries where they occur. The coup leaders in Gabon who described themselves as the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions had the cousin of the ousted president as their transition military leader. He issued a decree reinstating the constitutional court, which makes it a possibility that this court can ratify the idea that President Omar Bongo was reelected, and he could return to power. That’s potentially quite possible. We have to take our time before reaching conclusions on what happened in Gabon. In any case, the coupists and the people of Gabon who jubilated did not condemn France.

It has to be said that there was no democracy in Gabon, and so, the idea that what happened in that country was the overthrow of democracy may not hold much water. President Omar Bongo ruled from 1967 until he died in 2009. With his enormous powers, he controlled all the machinery of government including appointing the Prime Minister, dissolving the legislature, among others.

The first coup in Gabon took place in 1964 against the independence President, Leon M’ba, and it lasted for three days, and on the third day, the French reinstated President M’ba. They discovered shortly after that that he was suffering from terminal cancer. They started looking for who would replace him and settled on Omar Bongo who became Vice President in November 1966 at the age of 30. When President M’ba died in 1967, Omar Bongo became president and ruled until 2009.

Upon Omar Bongo’s death, the Speaker was supposed to take over power but that did not happen. Instead, the late president’s son, Ali Bongo, took over the reins of government. He did the first 7 years and went off for reelection in 2016 against his brother-in-law, Jean Ping who used to be the Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union. It was believed that in that election, President Ali Bongo lost in 6 of the 9 regions or provinces of Gabon. Statistics show that he won by 5,594 votes, and pretty much all of that, came from one region in Haut-Ogooue where the Bongos also come from. The turnout in Haut-Ogooue in that election was 99%. Out of this, 95.46% of the votes were said to be allocated to Ali Bongo. When the electoral commissioner announced the result in August 2016, there was mounting unrest, people were killed, the National Assembly was burnt, among other crises.

The African Union (AU) got involved in trying to deescalate the violence. Heads of State who had worked with Jean Ping persuaded him to go to the constitutional court which was headed by a mistress of late President Omar Bongo. The court ruled at midnight on the 23^rd of September 2016 (amidst speculations that there was nobody in the court), affirming Ali Bongo as the winner of the election.

Moses Amadi