Hundreds celebrate in Gabon’s capital after soldiers seize power.
Military officers in oil-producing Gabon place newly re-elected President Ali Bongo under house arrest.
A woman embraces a soldier as she celebrates Gabon’s military coup in Port-Gentil on August 30, 2023.
Hundreds of people have celebrated in the centre of Gabon’s capital, Libreville, after a group of senior military officers said they had seized power.
The mutinous soldiers also put the president under house arrest on Wednesday, hours after he was declared the winner of an election that would have extended his family’s 55-year rule in the oil-rich Central African nation.
International observers, however, criticised the vote, in which Bongo had sought his third term.
Within minutes of the announcement of the election result, gunfire was heard in the centre of Libreville. Later, a dozen uniformed soldiers appeared on state television and announced that they had seized power.
Soon after, crowds poured into the streets. 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 police.
Later, Bongo pleaded for support, appearing in a video showing him sitting in a chair with a bookshelf behind him. He said he was in his residence and his wife and son were in different places.
Hundreds of people celebrate the military’s intervention as France – Gabon’s former colonial ruler, which has troops stationed in the African nation – condemned the coup.
Opponents say the Bongo family has done little to share the state’s oil and mining wealth with its 2.3 million people during its more than half a century in charge of Gabon. Violent unrest broke out after Bongo’s disputed 2016 election win, and there was a foiled coup in 2019.
“I am marching today because I am joyful. After almost 60 years, the Bongos are out of power,” says Jules Lebigui, an unemployed 27-year-old who joined the celebrations on Libreville’s streets.
People display Gabon’s flag as they celebrate the coup in Akanda, Gabon.
If the military remains in power in Gabon, it would be the eighth coup in West and Central Africa since 2020.
The military officers who carried out the coup call themselves the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. They said Gabon faces “a severe institutional, political, economic and social crisis” and the August 26 election was not credible.
A military vehicle passes by people celebrating after military officers announced they had taken power.
It is not clear who is leading the coup, but television images showed a man in fatigues and a green beret held aloft by soldiers shouting, “Oligui president”, a possible reference to Brice Oligui Nguema, the head of Gabon’s Republican Guard.
Source : Aljazeera
Richard Koomson| mediacentralonline.info |Ghana
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