Displaying items by tag: hopes for future

Selling mobile phone accessories in a small shop in Gabon's capital Libreville, Doles Gabriel sees coup leader General Brice Oligui Ngeuma as someone who has unshackled the nation from the chains of his former boss - President Ali Bongo. ‘Moses was educated in the house of Pharaoh, but God appointed him to liberate the people of Egypt from slavery. This is what is happening in the house of Bongo’, the 23-year-old said. Her comments reflect the joy - and hopes - of many people who had lived under the Bongo dynasty. With an iron fist, the family have ruled oil-rich Gabon since 1967, when Omar Bongo became president in 1967. When he died in 2009 his son Ali succeeded him. He appointed the general head of the elite Republican Guard, in charge of his own security. But on 30 August, shortly after Mr Bongo was announced as the winner of disputed elections, the general seized power from the man he was supposed to protect. In a new development, on 20 September Gabon was partially suspended from the Commonwealth, as its foreign ministers said that they ‘strongly condemned the unconstitutional removal of the elected government from office’. See