Gabon’s General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema has attempted rap music and even breakdance moves in a bid to break from his profile as the military strongman who seized power.
Oligui, 50, swapped his uniform for a business suit to get among crowds during the campaign for Saturday’s election and took questions from journalists.
All this was designed to shift public perception of the military man who toppled the ruling Bongo family in August 2023, ending five decades of corruption-plagued rule.
The election was part of a promise to put the country back on the path to democratic rule, after leading an interim transitional junta. According to official provisional results, Oligui won a seven-year mandate in the contest with more than 90 percent of the vote.
‘career’ officer
Many Gabonese first saw Oligui on television when, as head of the presidential guard, he was triumphantly carried aloft by troops after veteran president Ali Bongo Ondimba was toppled on August 30, 2023.
For years, he had worked under Ali Bongo and his father Omar at the centre of the iron-fisted dynasty that ruled the oil-rich nation for 55 years and is accused of looting its wealth.
Oligui served Omar Bongo from 2005 until his death in a Barcelona hospital in 2009.
But after Ali Bongo was elected he was sidelined, beginning a 10-year stint as a military attache at Gabon’s embassies in Morocco and Senegal.
He returned in 2019 as the Republican Guard’s intelligence chief, replacing Bongo’s half-brother Frederic Bongo, before being promoted to general six months later.
Jalil Bongo, son of the former leader, said in a recent interview with Info241 in London that he was “deeply shocked” to see Oligui lead the coup, given his closeness to the Bongo family.
But Oligui has insisted he served his country, not the Bongo dynasty.
In an interview with Jeune Afrique he described himself as a “career” officer, adding: “I only know one banner: our flag.”
And in a recent debate with journalists on the state television, he said: “I spent 28 years of a military career with discipline hard work, love for the homeland — and following your calls, I gave up my military profession to serve you.”
Oligui the ‘builder’
Having announced his candidacy for the presidency on his birthday last month, Oligui lost no time vaunting the achievements of the transitional junta.
It had “done more in 19 months than the previous rulers did in 20 or 40 years”, he argued.
But his efforts to court the youth vote at campaign events was in stark contrast to the junta’s earlier actions.
Photos of young people who had been arrested and had their heads shaved for breaking a curfew provoked social media outrage.
Public anger was also stoked by the case of a soldier tortured to death by officers during an interrogation and the detention of an influencer, who criticised a power cut at a Libreville hospital.
Opponents said during the campaig that Oligui was a continuation of Bongo rule. But he presented himself to electors as the man who can rebuild Gabon and “to move forward”.
After his big win, Oligui will still have to tackle the oil-rich country’s litany of problems, from crumbling infrastructure to widespread poverty, while labouring under a crushing mountain of debt.
