DAKAR – Gabonese woke up Thursday to a new army leader after mutinous soldiers ousted a president whose circle of relatives had dominated the oil-rich Central African country for greater than 5 many years.
The new leader is Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, head of the elite republican guard unit, soldiers introduced on state TV Wednesday hours after President Ali Bongo Ondimba was declared winner of ultimate week’s presidential election, which Gabonese and observers say was marred with irregularities and a lack of transparency.
The soldiers accused Bongo of irresponsible governance that risked main the rustic into chaos and feature put him beneath area arrest and detained a number of other people in his cupboard, they mentioned.
While there have been authentic grievances concerning the vote and Bongo’s rule, his ousting is simply a pretext to declare energy for themselves, Gabon mavens say.
“The timing of the coup, following the announcement of the implausible electoral results, and the speed with which the junta is moving suggests this was planned in advance,” mentioned Joseph Siegle, director of analysis on the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “While there are many legitimate grievances about the vote and Bongo’s rule, that has little to do with the coup attempt in Gabon. Raising those grievances is just a smokescreen,” he mentioned.
Gabon’s coup is the 8th army takeover in Central and West Africa in 3 years and is derived kind of a month after Niger’s democratically elected president was ousted. Unlike Niger and neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, that have every had two coups apiece since 2020 and are being overrun through extremist violence, Gabon was observed as somewhat solid.
However, Bongo’s circle of relatives has been accused of endemic corruption and no longer letting the rustic’s oil wealth trickle down to the inhabitants of some 2 million other people.
Bongo 64, has served two phrases since coming to energy in 2009 after the dying of his father, who dominated the rustic for 41 years, and there was popular discontent along with his reign. Another workforce of mutinous soldiers tried a coup in 2019 however was briefly overpowered.
The former French colony is a member of OPEC, however its oil wealth is focused within the fingers of a few — and just about 40% of Gabonese elderly 15 to 24 had been out of paintings in 2020, in accordance to the World Bank. Its oil export earnings was $6 billion in 2022, in accordance to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Gabon’s coup and the overturning of a dynastic leader, comparable to Bongo, gave the impression to have struck a nerve around the continent that coups in additional far flung, unstable West Africa in the past hadn’t.
Hours after soldiers in Gabon introduced the brand new leader, president of neighboring Cameroon, Paul Biya, who is been in energy for 40 years, shuffled his army management, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame “accepted the resignation” of a dozen generals and greater than 80 different senior army officials. Even Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, in energy within the tiny former French colony within the Horn of Africa since 1999, condemned the coup in Gabon and denounced the hot pattern of army takeovers.
Still, on Wednesday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby mentioned it was too early to name the tried coup in Gabon a pattern.
“It’s just too soon to do a table slap here and say, ‘yep, we’ve got a trend here going’ or ‘yep, we’ve got a domino effect,’” he mentioned.
Since Bongo was toppled, the streets of Gabon’s capital, Libreville, were jubilant with other people celebrating along the military.
“Today we can only be happy,” said John Nze, a resident. “The country’s past situation handicapped everyone. There were no jobs. If the Gabonese are happy, it’s because they were hurting under the Bongos”.
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Associated Press newshounds Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya, and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this record.