DAKAR, Senega—Mutinous soldiers in Gabon said Wednesday they were seizing power to overturn the results of a presidential election, seeking to remove a president whose family has held power for 55 years, and crowds took to the streets to celebrate. The coup attempt came hours after the central African country’s…
This video grab shows the spokesperson for the mutinous soldiers speaking on state television as they announce that they had seized power in Libreville on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. Mutinous soldiers in Gabon said Wednesday they were overturning the results of a presidential election that was to extend the Bongo family’s 55-year hold on power.
“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.“Long live our army,” said Jordy Dikaba, a young man walking with his friends on a street lined with armored policemen.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 colonizer. Gabon’s coup, if successful would bring the number of coups in West and Central Africa to eight since 2020.
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. It is home to over 2 million people, and is slightly smaller than the US state of Colorado. The mutinous officers vowed to respect “Gabon’s commitments to the national and international community.”
Several members of the Bongo family are under investigation in France, and some have been given preliminary charges of embezzlement, money laundering and other forms of corruption, according to French media reports, driven in part by a broader push for justice by non-governmental organizations that have long accused multiple African heads of state of embezzling public funds and hiding them in France.