Omar Bongo

El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (formerly Albert-Bernard Bongo, Lewai—now Bongoville, renamed in his honour—, Haut-Ogooué Province, December 30, 1935-Barcelona, June 8, 2009) was a Gabonese politician who served as president of his country from 1967 to 2009, then being the ruler who held office the longest in Africa.

Biography

He was a member of the small Bateke ethnic group. After his primary and secondary studies in Brazzaville (capital of French Equatorial Africa), Bongo got a job in the Postal and Telecommunications Services, before doing his military service in the Force Air, successively in Brazzaville, Bangui and Fort Lamy (now N'Djamena, Chad). He retired with the rank of Captain.

He was elected vice-president in March 1967, along with Léon M'ba, and was named president after M'ba's death on 28 November 1967. He converted to Islam in 1973 and changed his name to Omar Bongo. He added the surname Ondimba in 2003. In May 2009, he was admitted to an Intensive Care Unit on the fourth floor of the Quirón clinic in Barcelona suffering from very advanced cancer in the digestive system.

In exchange for the support of the Elysée, Bongo agreed to make part of Gabon's wealth and, in particular, its strategic oil and uranium resources available to France. Regarding international political issues, Gabon generally joins the positions of Paris.

In 1968, Omar Bongo was pressured by France to recognize the independence of Biafra (southeastern Nigeria). He even had to accept that the Libreville airport served as a weapons supply center to Colonel Ojukwu (the Biafran secessionist leader).

In 1990, France deploys part of its army in Libreville to save its ally from a revolt.

According to political scientist Thomas Atenga, despite the large oil revenues, "the Gabonese rentier state has operated for years on the predation of resources for the benefit of its ruling class, around which developed a parasitic capitalism that has barely improved the living conditions of the population.

Mediation skills

According to the magazine Jeune Afrique, since the 1980s Omar Bongo, considered a "sage" of the African continent, took advantage of his political experience to offer himself as a mediator in various conflicts ^{[ citation needed ] , both between African States and within a State. Thus, in 1988 he organized a meeting in Libreville between former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos and Congolese leader Denis Sassou Nguesso whose respective countries had been at war for thirteen years, a meeting that led to a historic peace treaty. In South Africa, Bongo did not skimp on his support for Nelson Mandela, then in the fight against the apartheid regime. In 1997, he tried in vain in Zaire to reconcile Mobutu and Kabila. Since late 2008 he managed to end a civil war that had lasted several years in the Central African Republic by wresting a “National Reconciliation Pact” from the belligerents. On the other hand, he failed in the Congo, where a terrible civil war was raging between his friend Denis Sassou Nguesso and his other friend Pascal Lissouba, who worked for reconciliation between Chad and Sudan.}

On May 6, 2009, Omar Bongo Ondimba suspended his activities to rest and mourn his wife, Edith Lucie Bongo (daughter of the president of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso), who died on March 14, 2009, while rumors circulated about Bongo's own health, this loss greatly affected the president.

His death was announced on June 7, 2009, at the age of 73, as a result of the cancer he suffered from, weeks after his admission to the clinic. Subsequently, the Government of Gabon denied his death. Finally, through A statement officially announced his death, which occurred in Barcelona, on the morning of June 8, 2009.

Fortune

In January 2008, the newspaper Le Monde revealed the list of alleged ill-gotten gains in France of the Gabonese president and his family: more than 33 apartments and private mansions, worth more than 150 millions of euros. This information came from the French police investigation that followed a complaint of embezzlement of public funds, filed in March 2007 in Paris by three French associations (Survie, Sherpa and the Federation of Congolese in the Diaspora).

At his death, he left his heirs a fortune estimated between 500 and 3000 million euros.