Veteran journalist and managing editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., has said that he is not surprised by the military taking over in the Central African country of Gabon.
According to him, the signs have been clear that the ousted President of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was desperately holding on to power.
Pratt Jnr., who made these remarks during a panel discussion on the Good Morning Ghana programme on Wednesday, August 30, 2023, added that the coup in Gabon is well supported by the country's citizens because they are fed up with being ruled by one family.
“Who was not expecting a coup d'état in Gabon? I don’t know of one person who was not expecting a coup d'état in Gabon.
“As a matter of fact, if you look at the measures which were instituted by the government of Ali Bongo in the run-up to the election and after the elections, they all point to panic, severe panic.
“Everybody was expecting this coup d'état in Gabon for many reasons. One family has been in power for 53 long years. And that family has not been in power for 53 long years because it was loved by the people of Gabon; it has been in power because it imposed itself on the people, rigid elections, harassed opposition leaders, banned political parties, arrested trade union leaders, and so on,” he said.
He added that he expects four more coups in Africa, with at least two happening before the end of 2023.
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“I was expecting the coup d'état in Gabon. I’m still expecting coup d'états in four more countries. I think that four more are going to fall very, very soon, possibly before the end of the year. We should expect about 2 or 3 countries to fall, and four more countries are likely to fall.”
Background:
Gabonese soldiers announced in the wee hours of Wednesday, August 30, 2023, that they had seized power in the Central African country.
The announcement was made on national television.
According to the soldiers, they were setting aside the August 26 presidential election results.
Incumbent Ali Bongo, now ousted, had barely hours earlier been declared the winner of the poll, which the opposition claimed was fraudulent.
Gabon's Electoral Commission declared that Mr. Bongo had won a little under two-thirds of the votes.
An initial video of developments in the capital, Libreville, has been tweeted by a media consultant.
Trucks carrying members of the Republican Guard are seen driving through town as residents gathered in small pockets cheer them.
Later, hundreds are shown swarming around the arriving army trucks, singing and dancing as the soldiers make their way through town.
This is the second coup Bongo has faced after a 2019 coup by three soldiers was quashed. The three soldiers took over the state radio station to announce a short-lived take over.
Watch Pratt's remarks in the video below:
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Ventral journalist and managing editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jr