Tinubu on Gabon: In Talks with World Leaders to Address Spreading Autocracy

•Declares power belongs to people, not barrel of gun 

•Holds telephone conversation with Canadian PM on developments in Niger, Gabon 

•Ousted Gabonese president calls for protest

•Bongo’s ‘sound sexy but doesn’t work’ old view on democracy resonates

Deji Elumoye, Michael Olugbode and Emmanuel Addeh  in Abuja

President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, officially reacted to the unconstitutional change of government in neighbouring Republic of Gabon, and said he was already in talks with other world leaders on how to respond to the spreading autocratic tendencies across the continent.

Addressing newsmen on the development at State House, Abuja, presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed that Tinubu expressed deep concern over the coup d’état in Gabon. Ngelale said Tinubu firmly believed power belonged to the African people, and not the barrel of a gun.

The presidential spokesperson also disclosed that Tinubu, yesterday afternoon, had a “fruitful” telephone conversation with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the coup in Gabon and last month’s unconstitutional change of government in Niger Republic.

Soldiers, yesterday, staged a coup in Libreville, the Gabonese capital, and toppled the government of President Ali Bongo.

Bongo called for protest from within and outside his country to restore democracy.

Interestingly, a video clip recorded five years ago at the University of Oxford, England, where Bongo shared his thoughts on term limits for African presidents, went viral shortly after the putsch in Gabon.

Just recently, Bongo had during the country’s independence anniversary earlier this month also acknowledged the growing threat of military coups in the continent, but vowed it would never happen in Gabon on his watch.

Oil markets were left smarting by a second coup in five weeks in Africa, after the putsch in Gabon, an oil producer, bringing the recent wave of West African putsches to OPEC’s doorstep.

Bongo was accused of high treason by the group of high-ranking officers who deposed him. The group equally said other government officials as well as Bongo’s son, Nouredine Bongo, had been arrested.

The military leaders in Gabon announced they had seized power, days after the nation’s presidential election, which confirmed President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s third term.

The election results were alleged by the coup plotters to have been falsified.

The military group said state institutions had been dissolved with immediate effect, with the election results annulled, and the country’s borders closed. The group called itself the Committee for Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI).

The announcement came a few hours after the electoral body declared Bongo winner of the election with 64.27 per cent of the vote.

Gabon, a Central African country, is rich in natural resources. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, it borders Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Congo. It is sparsely populated, with a population of 2.3 million (2021) and forests covering 88 per cent of its territory.

Further sharing Tinubu’s views on the situation, Ngelale said, “President Bola Tinubu is watching developments in Gabon very closely with deep concern for the country’s socio-political stability and at the seeming autocratic contagion apparently spreading across different regions of our beloved continent.

“The president, as a man who has made significant personal sacrifices in his own life in the course of advancing and defending democracy, is of the unwavering belief that power belongs in the hands of Africa’s great people and not in the barrel of a loaded gun.

“The president affirms that the rule of law and a faithful recourse to the constitutional resolutions and instruments of electoral dispute resolution must not at any time be allowed to perish from our great continent.

“To this end, the president is working very closely and continuing to communicate with other Heads of State in the African Union and beyond towards a comprehensive consensus on the next steps forward with respect to how the crisis in Gabon will play out and how the continent will respond to the contagion of autocracy we are seeing spread across our continent.”

On the conversation with Trudeau, Ngelale said the two leaders agreed to promote and protect constitutional orders in the African continent.

He said, “The president has had substantive extended discussions with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, where issues related to the crisis in Niger Republic and the unfolding situation in Gabon were discussed.

“The two Heads of State mutually agreed that the promotion and protection of constitutional democratic governance on the continent remains a paramount priority and that the people of Africa living in the diaspora around the world making a huge impact to the socio-political landscapes of countries  around the world and the economies of countries around the world continue to urge on the global community to advance the course of democracy on the continent for the sake of the economic prosperity of all Africans.

“So, it is of frontline importance to understand that President Bola Tinubu would continue to engage with Heads of State, not just in the African Union, but also around the world and those communications and engagements are on-going.”

Meanwhile, Bongo, in a short video that went viral a few hours after the military leaders seized power, said, ”I am Ali Bongo  Ondimba, President of Gabon. I want to send a message to all the friends we have all over the world to tell them to make noise.

“For the people here have arrested me and my family. My son is somewhere, my wife is at another place. And I am at the residence right now, and nothing is happening.

“I don’t know what is going on, so I am calling you to make noise, to make noise really (loud noise). I am thanking you. Thank you.”

Bongo’s ‘Sound Sexy But, Doesn’t Work’ View on Term Limits Goes Viral

The ousted president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who earlier this month acknowledged the growing threat of military coups in Africa, had vowed it would not happen on his watch. He had had reasons in the past to bare his mind on sit-tight leadership on the continent.

“While our continent has been shaken in recent weeks by violent crises, rest assured that I will never allow you and our country Gabon to be hostages to attempts at destabilisation. Never!” he said recently when Gabon marked its 60 years of independence from France.

Almost five years ago, on October 9, 2018, the embattled Gabonese leader had said even though it sounded nice, the issue of term limits for presidents had serious challenges that tended to make it unworkable.

Speaking with Nigeria’s Professor Wale Adebanwi, Director of the Oxford Africa Centre, during a programme at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, United Kingdom, Bongo, who took questions from the audience, insisted that term limits did not work.

“What you’re saying, you know, sounds nice,” he told one of the students in the audience, in a video that went viral after the coup, “but it doesn’t work like that.”

He stressed that although he did not remove term limits in his country’s constitution, he also did not terminate it for some reasons.

He stated, “Term limit, I would say frankly, that it sounds sexy, but it isn’t working because when you go into your second term, you no longer have any authority because people know that you’re leaving. And your second term is completely lost, because of the problems of succession.

“And people within your own party, they start fighting and no one listens to you anymore. And we’ve discussed that, you know, with various African leaders and they will concur with the same.

“Now, why it is still applied is because some African leaders think that it is going to please you guys (the West) here. That’s why they do it, but they really don’t believe in it, because on the ground, they see the difficulty. And so, I don’t believe that term limits improve democracy. I don’t believe in that.”

According to him, allowing term limits would not allow leaders to implement their various programmes because there is always little time to do so due to the nature of elections and democracy.

Bongo said, “You know, and we’ve seen that in many cases in Africa. You need a certain time to apply your programme. And that’s not done in a country, where you have term limits. For instance, once you are elected, if you’re completely new, the first two years are going to be kind of bumpy for you to apply your policies.

“And then as you start implementing, you have to think of your re-election. And that means that if you have tough measures to apply, you won’t do that because you will be thinking of re-election, because you have a five-year term. So, you have to be campaigning for your re-election.

“And then you win, then you say, I’m going to do this. Then people don’t listen, they don’t listen to you anymore, because they know you’re leaving office, and you have a tough time. So, in reality, in those two terms, you only have a few years really, that you can work.”

The 64-year-old noted that if the matter of term limit for political leaders was so palatable, then Europe and America should also limit the terms of their lawmakers.

He stated at the time, “Now, it is also fair to say that in most European countries, there are no term limits. And you can’t say that these countries are not democratic. So, you see term limits is not really linked to democracy.

“I know you’re going to say, well, in America, they have term limits. Okay, fine. For only the president. Some guys are in the Senate. They have been there for 40 years. And you know that the power lies in the Senate in America. So, why not apply it there then? Apply the term limits to everyone, to every electoral office. That would be then fair, and not just the president.

“And actually, the guy who is running for president faces the toughest election, but he is the one that you apply term limits to, but you don’t do same to the others. You can be in parliament for 30-40 years, no problem. Why?

“If we should really push democracy, then it should also be applied in parliament because someone who’s been in parliament for 30 years, he’s very powerful. He’s a senior member of the parliament with a lot of weight. So the same thing should be applied to him.”

S&P: Oil Markets Vigilant After Coup in Gabon

Oil markets had been left smarting by a second coup in five weeks in an African oil producer, after military leaders in Gabon placed longstanding president Ali Bongo under house arrest, bringing the recent wave of West African putsches to OPEC’s doorstep.

The situation remained fluid, with crowds turning out in numbers to celebrate the military takeover, which looked set to end the Bongo family’s 56-year reign.

However, oil companies and traders said it was too early to predict supply disruption in Gabon, which pumped 210,000 b/d of crude oil in July, according to the Platts OPEC Survey from S&P Global Commodity Insights.

That made it a relative minnow in terms of global crude supply, although its barrels were an increasingly significant source for Israel, which might be forced to search for alternatives if Gabonese exports were impacted, S&P Global said.

An industry source familiar with the generals’ thinking told S&P Global on condition of anonymity that the country’s new rulers “are not touching the fields,” adding, “Production will stay the same.”

Gabon’s largest producers include Anglo-French independent Perenco, French company Maurel & Prom, and Norway’s BW Energy, which is halfway through a six-well drilling campaign, as well as a smattering of majors.

“We are following the situation closely… All offshore operations are continuing as normal,” Knut Sæthre, CFO of BW Energy, whose Gabon assets are currently producing 27,500 b/d, told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Maurel & Prom, which is purchasing 40,700 b/d Assala Energy in Gabon from private equity fund Carlyle Group, said the “current situation does not affect our sites of activity where operations are taking place normally, without impact on production.”

Tullow Oil, which produced 14,900 b/d in the country in 2022, also said its operations were “currently unaffected by the ongoing political activity and production continues as normal.”

Perenco declined to comment, while other companies with operations in Gabon did not respond to requests for comment.

French miner Eramet, which has large manganese operations in Gabon, said it had halted operations.

Meanwhile, risk management firm Ambrey said port operations at Gabon’s Libreville had stopped.

“The military will likely refrain from any rapid changes in the business environment in the short run to reassure investors. However, as other coup-hit countries indicate, greater interference in the economy is likely over the longer run, from reviewing to renegotiating contracts to demanding greater stakes in projects,” Maja Bovcon, senior Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told S&P Global.

Bovcon added, “Whoever runs the country… will have to grapple with Gabon’s overreliance on declining oil production and diversify its economy.”

Dated Brent rose 0.7 per cent on the day to $85.87, S&P Global data showed. Oil traders are closely following potential supply issues as a result of recent production and export cuts by the Saudi-Russia-led OPEC+ group.

“Gabon is a minor OPEC producer, but it serves as a reminder of the geopolitical risk in the oil market,” DNB Markets analyst Helge Andre Martinsen said.

Analysts said Israel, a major buyer of Gabonese crude, could be affected by production issues in the Central African country. Israel has already seen its crude supply disrupted this year by export issues in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region and has turned to Gabon to help fill the void.

Gabon, which produces medium-sweet Rabi Light and Rabi Blend crude grades, is estimated to have around 2 billion barrels of crude reserves.

Although its production has sunk from a peak of 365,000 b/d in 1996 to around 210,000 b/d as of August 30, Gabon is the only African OPEC member to hit its production quota in recent months.

The coup came hours after the electoral commission said Bongo had secured a third term in office with 64.27 per cent of the vote in a tightly contested election. However, former minister Albert Ondo Ossa, who led a six-party coalition and received 30.77 per cent of the vote according to the commission, dubbed the process “a fraud.”

Bongo and his family have been accused of hoarding the country’s significant oil wealth. French authorities last year charged five of his siblings in connection with an $85 million fraud case, the report said.

The coup in Gabon is the eighth across West and Central Africa since 2020 and comes five weeks after Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown by the country’s military.

Meanwhile, shares in TotalEnergies EP Gabon fell Wednesday after military officers declared a coup in the central African nation of Gabon following President Ali Bongo’s win in the elections. At 0949 GMT, the stock was down 10 per cent lower at EUR166.00.

The subsidiary of French major TotalEnergies has been active in the central African country for more than 90 years, with oil-and-gas exploration and production activities and as a leading retailer.

Crude-oil production from fields operated by the TotalEnergies EP Gabon was 5.8 million barrels in 2022. The French company has a 58.28 per cent share in TotalEnergies EP Gabon, while the Gabonese state holds a 25 per cent stake.