Sylvia Ondimba Valentin, Wife Of Gabon’s Deposed Leader Ali Bongo Imprisoned

The New Diplomat
Writer

Ad

The Gift of Hindsight: What I Would Tell My Younger Self, By Johnson Babalola

By Johnson Babalola @jbdlaw Hindsight, they say, is life’s most generous teacher—but it sends its lessons late. It is only after the storms that the patterns become clear; only after the wrong turns that the map begins to make sense. As I celebrate another birthday today and have grown older, I often find myself reflecting…

Gasoline Prices Drop Toward Pandemic-Era Lows

The national average price of gasoline dropped below $3 a gallon over the weekend. GasBuddy has predicted that prices will go even lower in the coming weeks, with good prospects of motorists enjoying sub-$3 prices for extended periods. This drop is overwhelmingly being driven by the significant increase in oil production from OPEC throughout 2025.…

Alleged Christian Genocide Claim is Damaging Nigeria’s Image– Tuggar Laments

By Abiola Olawale Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has voiced concern over what he described as the damaging impact of the "Christian genocide" narrative on Nigeria's international image. This is as the Minister claimed that the country's complex security challenges are being falsely simplified as religious persecution. Speaking at the Reuters NEXT Gulf Summit…

Ad

By Ken Afor

Sylvia Bongo Ondimba Valentin, the wife of former President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, who has been detained under house arrest since the country’s coup in late August, has been imprisoned.

Sylvia Bongo Ondimba Valentin, alleged to have embezzled public funds, was imprisoned late on Wednesday, according to her lawyer Francois Zimeray, who denounced the “arbitrary illegal procedure.”

On September 28, Bongo’s wife was accused of forging documents, money laundering, and forgery.

Since the coup on August 30 ended the 55-year rule of the Bongo dynasty, Sylvia Bongo has been placed under house arrest in the country’s capital, Libreville.

The putschists assert that the former president and his entourage rigged the election.

They charged Sylvia Bongo and her son Nourredin Bongo Valentin with controlling the former president, who is still recovering from a serious stroke that occurred in 2018.

They alleged that the two have misappropriated public funds while effectively ruling the oil-rich nation for the past five years.

Since the coup, Nourredin Bongo Valentin has been held without bail on charges of corruption.

“We condemn this illegal procedure,” lawyer Zimeray said.

“There is a difference between justice and arbitrary actions, between the law and revenge,” he said.

Moments after being declared the victor of a presidential election, Bongo, 64, who had ruled the nation in Central Africa since 2009, was deposed by military authorities.

In contrast to a military takeover, many viewed it as a liberating act.

Following his father Omar’s death in 2009, after nearly 42 years in office, Ali Bongo was elected.

Although Gabon has the third-highest GDP per capita in Africa, the World Bank reports that one in three citizens of the country live in poverty.

After the first coup d’état in Sudan in 2019 in recent times, Gabon will be the tenth nation on the continent to go through one.

Ad

X whatsapp