According to an official statement issued this morning, incumbent Gabonese president Ali Bongo Ondimba won a third term in office with 64,27% of the votes cast in Gabon's recent general election.
However, not everyone agreed. The announcement was quickly followed by the appearance on Gabonese TV of a group of military officers, who claimed they had staged a coup, alleging the election had been fraudulent.
If these developments give rise to a sense of déjà vu then maybe it is because something very similar happened in 2016, when Bongo also claimed victory following a dodgy election and elements within the armed forces got a bit upset.
Back in 2016, I just happened to be in Gabon as part of a birding expedition with my brother, an avid birder and very talented naturalist. We were deep in east-central Gabon, in the Ivindo National Park. Ivindo is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its outstanding biodiversity and relatively intact tropical forest ecosystem.
The 2016 election result was announced while we were still in Ovindo, in fact on the day prior to our planned return to Libreville. On the day of departure, soldiers were manning road blocks on all major roads. It was clear that returning to Libreville by road was out of the question.
One of our guides, a resourceful Cameroonian, came up with the brilliant idea of taking the train instead. It just happens that the Franceville-Libreville line, Gabon’s only railway, which serves logging and mining interests, runs past Ivindo not too far away to the south.
And so at sunset we set off. After many hours of driving on minor muddy forest roads under the cover of darkness, we arrived at Gare de Moanda, a tiny station with a tin roof, rickety food stalls, and people sitting around doing very little. We boarded the train to Libreville in the middle of the night.
The seats in the passenger compartment were made of plastic covered faux-velour. The toilet did not work. There was no service. Yet, I enjoyed the long and slow journey through Gabon’s darkness, rain, and endless jungle. It also happened to be my birthday. As if to reward me, the train conductor made sure that the TV mounted in the compartment ceiling blasted non-stop semi-pornographic music videos from DRC all the way to the coast.
In the morning, we arrived at Libreville’s main railway terminal. There were heavily armed soldiers everywhere, but I was able to catch a taxi to my hotel. Two days later calm was restored and I was able to continue my journey to Sao Tome and Principe.
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