Crowds celebrated in Gabon after mutinous soldiers said on Wednesday, they were seizing power in order to overturn the results of a presidential election, seeking to remove a president whose family has held power for 55 years. The coup attempt came hours after the central African country’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64, was declared winner of an election marred by fears of violence. Within minutes of the announcement, gunfire was heard in the centre of the capital, Libreville.
Later, a dozen uniformed soldiers appeared on state television and announced that they had seized power.
Crowds in the city took to the city’s streets to celebrate the end of Bongo’s reign, singing the national anthem with soldiers. “Thank you, army. Finally, we’ve been waiting a long time for this moment,” said Yollande Okomo, standing in front of soldiers from Gabon’s elite republican guard. Shopkeeper Viviane Mbou offered the soldiers juice, which they declined. “Long live our army,” said Jordy Dikaba, a young man walking with his friends on a street lined with armored policemen. There was no word from the president and his whereabout were not immediately clear. The private intelligence firm Ambrey said all operations at the country’s main port in Libreville had been halted, with authorities refusing to grant permission for vessels to leave. It wasn’t immediately clear if airlines were operating in the country. The soldiers intended to “dissolve all institutions of the republic,” said a spokesman for the group, whose members were drawn from the gendarme, the republican guard and other elements of the security forces.
The coup attempt came about one month after mutinous soldiers in Niger seized power from the democratically elected government, and is the latest in a series of coups that have challenged governments with ties to France, the region’s former coloniser. Gabon’s coup, if successful would bring the number of coups in West and Central Africa to eight since 2020. In his annual Independence Day speech August 17, Bongo said “While our continent has been shaken in recent weeks by violent crises, rest assured that I will never allow you and our country Gabon to be hostages to attempts at destabilisation. Never.” Unlike Niger and two other West African countries run by military juntas, Gabon hasn’t been wracked by jihadi violence and had been seen as relatively stable.
But nearly 40 per cent of Gabonese ages 15-24 were out of work in 2020, according to the World Bank. Bongo acknowledged the widespread frustration over rising costs of living in his Aug. 17 speech, and listed measures his government was making to contain fuel prices, make education more affordable, and stabilise the price of baguettes. Gabon is a member of the OPEC oil cartel, with a production of some 181,000 barrels of crude a day, making it the eighth-largest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa.