Gabon’s former President Ali Bongo, who was ousted in a putsch, is free to leave the country and travel abroad the leader of the coup that toppled him said on Wednesday.
General Brice Oligui Nguema, in a statement read on state television on Thursday said; ‘He has freedom of movement… and can travel abroad if he wishes’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Bongo, in power for 14 years, had been under house arrest since the military coup of August 30, carried out without bloodshed less than an hour after his party proclaimed his re-election in a vote described as fraudulent by the putschists.
‘Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba has freedom of movement. He can travel abroad if he wishes to carry out his medical checks,’ Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi Manfoumbi said, reading a press release signed by Oligui took his oath as transitional president on Monday.
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Bongo suffered a serious stroke in October 2018 which left him physically impaired, with particular difficulty moving his right leg and arm.
Recall that Gabon’s main opposition candidate in the disputed 26th August Presidential election, Albert Ondo Ossa had over the weekend claimed victory in the election while brushing aside the coup in the oil-rich central African country as ‘a disappointment’ and ‘family affair’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that coup plotters had struck early on Wednesday, minutes after the electoral authority announced that President Ali Bongo, who had been in power since after his father’s death in 2009, had won a third term.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen yesterday, Ossa said; ‘I consider myself to be the candidate who won the presidential election, ‘adding that the election outcome and military takeover were ‘two coups in one’.
He did not give any more details about his claim but said the Gabonese had voted massively for him and he would use constitutional means to contest the election outcome.