Brice Oligui Nguema
General Brice Oligui Nguema, who was named Gabon's new leader in the hours following a military takeover on 30 August 2023, is one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in the country today. Nguema is said by some sources to be Ali Bongo's cousin, though the precise relationship is unreported. Nguema served the central African country's long-time former president Omar Bongo before turning on his son, ousted leader Ali Bongo. Nguema had been chief of the republican guard, the country's most powerful army unit, since 2019, with close sources describing him as charismatic and respected. The first statement announcing the coup was read out in the courtyard of the presidential palace, a fortress protected by his military unit.
Said to be discreet and secretive, Nguema was absent from the first three statements read out by senior army officers on national television to announce the coup. But Gabonese television kept broadcasting the same images: a man, apparently Nguema, in fatigues and a green beret being carried through the streets of the capital Libreville by jubilant soldiers chanting, "Oligui président.” Nguema also emerged as a spokesperson in the hours following the announcement, answering questions from French newspaper "Le Monde".
Bongo – who was declared the winner of the 26 August 2023 elections just an hour before the coup began – had been forcibly "retired" but he still "enjoys all his rights", Nguema said. "He had no right to serve a third term; the Constitution had been flouted and the election method itself was not good. So the army has decided to turn the page, to fulfill its responsibilities." Gabon’s soldiers have apparently begun celebrating Nguema. Unverified videos and images on social media showed a group of soldiers dancing with Nguema and calling him Gabon’s “next strongman.”
He underscored the "discontent" in Gabon and Bongo's "illness", referring to a stroke in 2018. As Bongo was confined to house arrest, Nguema himself was named to lead Gabon's transitional authority, held aloft by his troops amid jubilant celebrations in the streets of the capital Libreville and the economic hub of Port-Gentil.
Born to a Teke mother and a Fang father, Gabon's main ethnic group, Nguema, 48, mostly grew up with his mother in Haut-Ogooue province, a Bongo stronghold. The son of a military officer, he trained at the Royal Military Academy of Meknes, in Morocco. Opposition to Bongo came mainly from the Fang, the country's largest tribe. They're located mainly in the northern part of the country where it overlaps into the Cameroons and Equatorial Guinea. In fact, it's the dominant tribe in Equatorial Guinea. They're a very aggressive people, a tribe that's very cohesive and aggressive. They look out for themselves and for each other. They have a feeling that they have a natural right to leadership in Gabon. The first president was a Fang. The non-Fang in the country are all fearful of the Fang, and so one of the things that the Bongos had got going for them was that they were not a Fang. They served as a sort of bulwark against Fang domination.
Nguema served as an aide-de-camp to Ali Bongo's father, Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon with an iron fist for almost 42 years until his death in 2009. "He's someone who knows the Gabonese military apparatus very well, a good soldier, trained at good military schools," including Morocco's Meknes royal military academy, according to a member of Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) who was speaking on condition of anonymity.
"When I met him, he was a fairly intelligent man, easy to talk to and not afraid of journalists," Francis Kpatindé, a journalist and lecturer specialising in Gabon at Sciences-Po University Paris, told FRANCE 24. Nguema was known to be extremely close to the elder Bongo, serving him from 2005 until his death in a Barcelona hospital.
But Nguema was sidelined in 2009 after Ali Bongo was elected to succeed his father, beginning a 10-year stint as a military attaché at Gabon's embassies in Morocco and Senegal. He returned to prominence in 2018 as the republican guard's intelligence chief, replacing Ali Bongo's half-brother Frederic Bongo, before getting promoted to general six months later.
As the keystone of Gabon's security forces, the bald and athletically built Nguema pushed Ali Bongo to improve his men's working and living conditions by upgrading their facilities, funding schools for soldiers' children and refurbishing accommodations. The measures earned him respect and sympathy from his colleagues, according to the PDG source. The guard, whose military officers are recognisable by their green berets, is responsible for presidential security. As its head, Nguema tried to fortify Gabon’s internal security systems with reforms that were seen as elongating Bongo’s stay in power. According to local media reports, Nguema also composed a song that included the line: “I would defend my president with honour and loyalty”.
Besides military and diplomatic duties, Nguema was seen as entrepreneurial and also believed to be a millionaire in Gabonese circles. According to a 2020 investigation by The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on the Bongo family’s assets in the United States, Nguema invested in real estate, paying in cash. “He bought three properties in middle- and working-class neighbourhoods in the Maryland suburbs of Hyattsville and Silver Spring, just outside the capital, in 2015 and 2018. The homes were purchased with a total of over $1 million in cash,” the OCCRP report said. When reporters questioned Nguema about these properties, he said it was a private affair. “I think whether in France or in the United States, a private life is a private life that [should be] respected.” While by Gsbonese standards these dwellings might seem nice, with indoor plumbling and reliable electricity, by Washington standards they would charitably be descibed as "modest".
In an interview with French daily Le Monde on 30 August 2023, Nguema echoed those thoughts. “Beyond this discontent, there is the illness of the Head of State [Ali Bongo suffered a stroke in October 2018 which left him weakened]. Everyone talks about it, but no one takes responsibility. He did not have the right to serve a third term, the Constitution was violated, the method of election itself was not good. So the army decided to turn the page, to take its responsibilities,” Nguema said. He added that Ali Bongo can retire and continue to enjoy his rights like every other Gabonese citizen.
"He isn't very talkative, but very appreciated by his men. He's a Julius Caesar, and Julius Caesar cares for the comfort of his legionaries," the source said, referring to the Roman general. The former colleague praised Nguema as "a man of consensus, who never raises his voice, who listens to everyone and systematically seeks compromise". Nguema included officers from all army branches in the junta's Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions, which has been established to lead Gabon into its next political era. Coup leaders have not yet offered a timeline for a return to civilian rule.
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