Gabon coup: Army general named as new leader just hours after President Bongo ousting

A new military leader has been named in Gabon after mutinous soldiers ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family had ruled the nation for more than five decades.

The new leader has been named as General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, head of the oil-rich Central African country’s elite republican guard unit, soldiers said on state TV on Wednesday.

The announcement came just hours after President Bongo was declared the winner of last week’s presidential election, which was widely seen by Gabonese and the international community as lacking transparency and marred with irregularities.

Bongo, 64, has served two terms since coming to power in 2009 after the death of his father, who ruled the country for 41 years, and there has been widespread discontent with his reign.

Another group of mutinous soldiers attempted a coup in January 2019, while Bongo was in Morocco recovering from a stroke, but they were quickly overpowered.

The soldiers behind Wednesday's coup have accused Bongo of irresponsible governance, while the former president's family has been accused of endemic corruption and not letting the country’s oil wealth trickle down to the population of some two million people.

However, Gabon experts have said, while there were legitimate grievances about the vote and Bongo’s rule, it is just a pretext to claim power.

“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,” said Joseph Siegle, director of research at 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 added.

Since Bongo was toppled, the streets of Gabon's capital, Libreville, have been jubilant with people celebrating alongside the army.

But there has been little support for the coup from neighbouring African leaders.

Hours after the Gabonese soldier's announcement, the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, who's been in power for 40 years, shuffled his military leadership.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame “accepted the resignation” of a dozen generals and more than 80 other senior military officers.

And even Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, in power in the tiny former French colony in the Horn of Africa since 1999, condemned the coup in Gabon and denounced the recent trend of military takeovers.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said it was too early to call the attempted coup in Gabon a trend.

“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 said shortly after the announcement on Wednesday.

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