Gabon: The African Union’s Peace and Security Council has announced that it has decided to “immediately suspend” Gabon following the military coup in the country.
The Council posted on X that it “strongly condemns the military takeover of power in the Republic of Gabon” and has decided “to immediately suspend the participation of Gabon in all activities of the AU, its organs, and institutions”.
The statement came after a meeting of the council on the coup in Gabon that followed disputed elections in which President Mr. Ali Bongo Ondimba was declared the winner. The meeting was chaired by the African Union commissioner for political affairs, Mr. Bankole Adeoye of Nigeria, and the current holder of the council’s rotating chair, Burundi’s Mr. Willy Nyamitwe.
The takeover ended the Bongo family’s almost six decades in power and created a new crisis in the region, which has previously faced eight coups since 2020.
Nigeria’s recently elected president Mr. Bola Tinubu called it a “contagion of autocracy.” “My fear has been confirmed in Gabon that copycats will start doing the same thing until it is stopped,” Mr. Tinubu, who chairs West Africa’s main regional body, ECOWAS, commented.
“The general who overthrew Gabon’s Bongo dynasty will be sworn in as transitional president,” the army stated. “The military sought to reassure donors they would respect all commitments at home and abroad and phase in transitional institutions,” Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi Manfoumbi, spokesman for the new regime, remarked. According to reports, the swearing-in of the new leader General Brice Oligui Nguema will take place at the constitutional court.
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