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.
