Gabon Coup

31 Aug 2023

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Context: Recently, military officers in Gabon say they have taken power and put the president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, under house arrest.

About Gabon

Location: It’s an oil-rich country on the west coast of Central Africa, with a small population of just 2.4 million.
Gabon is a member of the Opec oil cartel, with a production of 181,000 barrels of crude a day, making it the eighth-largest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa.
Political Stability: Gabon till date has not been afflicted by jihadi violence and had been seen as relatively stable.
Unemployment: According to World Bank, nearly 40% of Gabonese aged 15-24 were out of work in 2020.
About Ali Bongo: He was declared the winner of Saturday’s disputed elections and has been president since 2009.
- Before that, his father was in power for 41 years.

Why so many coups?

Gabon becomes the latest in Africa to suffer an attempted coup.
If successful, the coup would be the eighth in west and central Africa since 2020.
The most recent one, in Niger, was in July, while the military has also seized power in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Chad.
Coup threaten a reversal of the democratization process the continent has undergone in the past two decades.
Reason for Rampant Coup: Corruption, mismanagement and poverty,