Iran Press/ Africa: Minutes after Gabon’s electoral commission announced on Wednesday that President Ali Bongo Ondimba had won a third term in office, senior military officers announced a coup and annulled the election results.
According to local media reports, Brice Clothaire Oligui Nguema, the commander-in-chief of the Gabonese Republican Guard – the country’s most powerful security unit – and a cousin to Bongo, is the ringleader of the attempted coup.
Nguema is from Gabon's southeasternmost province of Haut-Ogooue, which borders the Republic of Congo. Bongo is also from the same part of the country.
Nguema is one of the most influential and enigmatic figures in the country today. The son of a military officer, he trained at the Royal Military Academy of Meknes, in Morocco.
Nguema then served as Bongo’s “aides-de-camp” to a commander in former President Omar Bongo’s Republican Guard, until the former Gabonese leader’s death in 2009.
