removal of president is a “smokescreen” of the Gabonese military

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Gabonese woke up on Thursday to a new military junta at the helm of the country after mutinous soldiers toppled the president, whose family had ruled the oil-rich Central African country for more than five decades.

The new leader is General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, head of the elite Republican Guard, the rebels announced on state television on Wednesday, hours after the president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was declared the winner of an election. held last week and which, according to the population and observers, were plagued by irregularities and a lack of transparency.

The soldiers accused Bongo of leading an irresponsible government that risked plunging the country into chaos, and placed him under house arrest. In addition, they announced the arrest of several members of his government.

Although there were legitimate complaints about the elections and the Bongo government, his removal was only a pretext for the military to claim power for itself, according to experts.

“The timing of the coup, after the announcement of the implausible election results, and the speed with which the junta is moving suggest that this was planned in advance,” said Joseph Siegle, research director at the African Center for Strategic Studies. “Raising those grievances is just a smokescreen.”

Gabon’s coup is the eighth military uprising in West and Central Africa in three years and comes just a month after Niger ousted the democratically elected president. Unlike Niger and neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, which also switched to military rule after mutinies since 2020, Gabon has not been plagued by jihadist violence and was considered a relatively stable country.

But the Bongo family had been accused of endemic corruption and of not letting oil-derived wealth reach the country’s estimated two million people.

Bongo, 64, governed for two legislatures after coming to power in 2009, after the death of his father, who led the country for 41 years, and discontent with his mandate was widespread. Another group of soldiers attempted a coup in 2019, but were quickly overthrown.

The former French colony is part of OPEC, but its oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and nearly 40% of Gabonese ages 15-24 were unemployed in 2020, according to World Bank data. Its oil export revenue reached $6 billion in 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The situation in Gabon and the overthrow of a dynastic leader like Bongo seems to have permeated parts of the continent that are not used to these maneuvers.

Hours after Gabonese soldiers announced the country’s new leader, Cameroonian President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 40 years, changed his military leadership, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame “accepted the resignation” of a dozen generals and more than 80 high-ranking soldiers.

Even Ismail Omar Guelleh, who has ruled Djibouti, a small former French colony in the Horn of Africa, since 1999, condemned the coup and denounced the recent trend of military takeovers.

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Associated Press writers Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya, and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.