Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Griffin Ondo Nzuey
Published on 2024-03-18 11:33:36
Maintaining the cult of personality around the president of the Transition and his wife, the CTRI is planning to construct several infrastructures inside the country, notably in Oyem where the construction of the future “Oliguiville” was recently launched and in Lebamba where the “Maman Zita Oligui Nguema Medical Center” will be built next year.
Habits die hard. In Gabon, the fall of the Bongo regime seems to be gradually replaced by another regime centered around one person and their family: Oligui Nguema, around whom a more or less well-conceived propaganda is now developing. Observers believe that the current branding aims at a specific objective: ensuring the continuity of the “liberator” at the head of the country. Otherwise, how to justify that all achievements, including infrastructure, now relate to him and his main wife, as was the case under the Bongo father and son era?
Like Omar Bongo, whose memory he seems to be guarding, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema will see a city bearing his name being built during his lifetime. On Friday, March 15, the extension works of the city of Oyem were officially launched in the presence of the governor of the Woleu-Ntem province, Jules Djeki. Not surprisingly in the current context, the new city has already been named “Oliguiville”. This inevitably brings to mind the existence of Bongoville in the Haut-Ogooué. The future “biodiversity city”, which will cover an area of 1,779.675 hectares, will also see the construction of a boulevard named “Boulevard du 30 août”.
Refuting any cult of personality around the president of the Transition, executives from the northern capital assure that it is an “old project” initially named “Oyem 3” whose name simply changed to pay tribute to the head of the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI) following the coup d’état in late August 2023. The question is: does his wife also deserve the same tribute? Like her husband, Zita Oligui Nguema will also have the privilege of having a public infrastructure named after her, specifically a medical facility in her hometown, Lebamba. The CTRI, which finances the entire project, plans to deliver the “Maman Zita Oligui Nguema Medical Center” sometime in 2025. Quite a strange change indeed!
Read the original article(French) on Gabon Review
