"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

 

English version It is a Gabonese classic, albeit frustrating. People in power who are unable to provide the easy things, have the gall to claim their technical firepower on things that even the West finds almost impossible. In Gabon, dear reader, governance is often prioritized for control rather than for service. Gabon has failing infrastructure but the regime is focused on high-tech digital policing. This is a common laugh-or-cry moments. Germain Ngoyo Moussavou, President of the High Authority of Communication (HAC) in Gabon, essentially admits that the state is actively working to bridge technical gaps to block VPNs. While the authorities claim to have the necessary technology, there are several reasons why this feels like a cruel joke. Anyone with half a brain knows that fully blocking VPNs is notoriously difficult. While a state can block known VPN server IP addresses or use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to find VPN traffic, developers are constantly creating new obfuscation proto...

English version When someone like Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze speaks, his newly found lucidity isn't just accidental. Having served as the ultimate shield for the Bongo system for years, the voice of the PDG, he understands the mechanics of Gabonese power better than almost anyone.  When he critiques Oligui Nguema, he isn't guessing about the risks of autocracy; he’s describing a playbook he helped write. There is a specific kind of clarity that comes to a propagandist once they are pushed out of the inner circle. They suddenly see every flaw they previously spent years airbrushing away. By being the first to point out the new regime's old habits, they surprise everyone by seeming to always be ahead of everyone. The most effective way for a discredited figure to regain relevance is to say what everyone else is too afraid (or too hopeful) to admit. In Gabon’s case, the moment of lucidity Bilie-By-Nze is offering is the suggestion that military populism is just civilian autocra...

English version The CBON regime has just opened a new point of tension with agents of the education sector; which inevitably questions the credibility of the commitments made by the regime. While a timeline had been established to ease the crisis, the Minister of the Public Service, Laurence Ndong, announced a major redevelopment. Initially, 144 agents were to be regularized in February. Finally, only 20 integrations will take place this month, the rest being postponed sine die. The government invokes technical problems and deadlines that are too short to explain this delay. But this change is perceived as a major setback by teachers, especially since some had resumed classes on the basis of the initial promises. The unions denounce a lack of reliability and a turnaround that rekindles distrust. This situation illustrates the difficulty of the regime in transforming its promises into concrete actions, at the risk of again weakening an educational system already under pressure. For many...