"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

(Photos Rougou) English version These days in Gabon, astute observers already perceive a shift in attitudes. The Gabonese people may still be silent, but their actions toward the regime are speaking volumes. Ali Bongo is being rejected by the population. No other conclusion can be valid when one looks at the different events having taken place lately in Gabon, such as the failure of Ali Bongo to attract people to the inauguration of the Agondjé football stadium, or his tour of the provinces when everything was being forced because people did not want to participate in his stupid carnival. The initiative taken by members of the free opposition and the free civil society to crisscross the country and meet the Gabonese people in their own modest environment, to speak to them in a simple and direct language, sometimes in local languages, without dancing women and stupid gadgets as Ali Bongo would do, is exactly what is needed for the next phase of this growing movement of taking...

English version Ali Bongo and his henchmen are discovering that the Gabonese public is more mature than they think, because despite the fact that they are closing every freedom outlet within the country in order to force the people to find the dictatorship accommodation, the population is reacting ostensibly in a manner that says that it is moving further away from Ali Bongo. Yes, when it comes to political and personal freedoms, in the end people will vote with their feet, as they did on Sunday when despite having distributed free tickets for the football match between China and Gabon, to school children and workers throughout Libreville, the Gabonese public refused to satisfy Ali Bongo's wishes and decided to stay home. This is voting with ones feet. By refusing to go to the stadium, the population made an informed decisions that said that Ali Bongo could celebrate whatever he feels like celebrating, with his friends and courtesans, but for the majority of the people suffer...

An empty stadium Un stade vide English version Ali Bongo and his henchmen have discovered once more, just how unpopular they are with the Gabonese population in general. They were promising that the inauguration of the Agondjé stadium would take place in front of a capacity crowd, that is in front of about 40000 people. The members of the organization committee were saying in the governmental media that all 40000 tickets had been distributed and that buses would be there to carry people from and to the stadium. Everything was going to be a major success. However, when the football match started, all these predictions of a full and enthusiastic crowd in the stands of the new stadium did not materialize. The Gabonese public clearly sent a message to Ali Bongo that they were not interested in participating in anything having to do with him. The Gabonese people are sick and tired of the Bongos and nothing would change that fact. These pictures are clearly showing that the public did...

One of the many candidates promising the moon, while everybody knows that a parliamentarian in the Bongo national assembly is just there to accept what the Bongos want Un des nombreux candidats qui promettent la lune, alors que tout le monde sait qu’un parlementaire dans l’assemblée nationale des Bongo, est là pour accepter les désirs des Bongo English version While the Bongo's regime henchmen are filling the news in Gabon with tin foil conspiracies and political allegations of coup and other foolishness, the real substance of political discourse gradually dissipates unguarded. This is exactly what the regime wants. This is why the Gabonese people should always be reminded of what is really important, so they would not let themselves distracted by the juvenile mischief and ill tailored political stories orchestrated by Ali Bongo's press trying to orient the Gabonese people toward the unreasonable and illogical. The sordid eyesores unfolding in Libreville, where like ...

English version After having recently received René Ndemezo'o-Obiang, who came to declare that the grass of the Agondjé stadium would be "treated" by south-african experts and that in January 2012, the African Cup of Nations would take place on a perfect pitch; the TV channel RTG1 received this Thursday, Louis Gaston Mayila, to get his opinion on whether the opposition should participate or not in the upcoming legislative election. If we'll just wait and see the miracles of the turf experts from South-Africa, the interview by Louis Gaston Mayila kept all the promises of a perfect political comedy. In a style that is typical of him and is divided between a political balancing act and outright clowning, Mayila spoke in statements that tended to polish the weapons of those in power at the moment. Indeed, he developed reasons that were essentially contradictory, when explaining why after stating that the upcoming elections would not occur while taking into account...

English version A book published this week by "La Découverte " and written by two French journalists, Xavier Harel and Thomas Hofnung, has looked into the practices of françafrique and says that candidate Nicolas Sarkozy got some of his financial backing that allowed him to win the French presidential election in 2007, from none other than Omar Bongo, the former president of Gabon who died in 2009 and has since been succeeded by his son Ali Bongo under questionable conditions. This book which is entitled "Le scandale des biens mal acquis or The scandal of ill-gotten gains." In it, a former adviser to President Omar Bongo, Michael Jocktane, says that that Omar Bongo had helped to fund the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He was personal advisor to Omar Bongo in 2005, before becoming assistant director of his office until 2009. In this book, he reveals that suitcases full of money had continued to flow before and after the election of Nicolas...

English version It is the former US President, Harry Truman, who had a sign on his desk which said: “The buck stops here.” This sign was meant to indicate to everybody that he didn’t “pass the buck” to anyone else and accepted personal and full responsibility, as the president, for the way the country was governed and for all decisions taken by his government. Having noticed that the Gabonese people in their entirety were incensed by the campaign of demolition of homes underway in Libreville at the moment, Ali Bongo went this Wednesday to visit some of the sites of these demolitions and declared on Gabonese official TV that his government did not handle this issue appropriately and that his government failed to communicate and explain to the population why they homes were being destroyed. Instead of taking full responsibility for the demolition of citizen homes that his regime and armed forces were undertaking in Libreville, Ali Bongo blamed the government for that fiasco. Thi...

English version Jean Eyeghe-Ndong is the last Prime Minister of Omar Bongo. He resigned his position after Omar Bongo's death when it became clear to him that Ali Bongo, the son, and his clan were going to hijack the power structure and take over Gabon. Since then, Jean Eyeghe-Ndong has been very active in the Gabonese opposition and it is always a privilege to hear what he has to say, because he is one of very few Gabonese politicians who has been predicting specifically and accurately what was to occur in Gabon and the motives of those who think that Gabon is their property. Jean Eyeghe-Ndong communicates in a refreshingly direct style that rejects any attempt to hide or disguise the truth. In his speeches, he has also consistently rejected the prevailing idea that the Gabonese people were not ready for change. Below is an address that Jean Eyeghe-Ndong gave this past weekend in Libreville, to explain why he was not participating in the coming legislative election and why t...