Gabon’s prime minister denied on Monday reports that Africa’s longest-serving president, Omar Bongo Ondimba, had died, after French media announced his death.
Bongo is “alive and well”, Jean Eyeghe Ndong told reporters at the Quiron private clinic in the Spanish city of Barcelona, where sources said Bongo was being treated for cancer.
The 73-year-old leader, who has ruled the former French colony since 1967, checked into the clinic on May 21 and several sources said the disease had entered an advanced stage.
Bongo’s death was reported on the website of the French weekly Le Point, and a source close to the French government told Agence France-Presse he had died on Sunday. The Foreign Ministry declined to confirm the report.
Bongo came to power with French support and ruled over a state that stuffed its coffers with profits from its abundant oil wealth, while most of the 1,5-million population remained poor.
The prime minister earlier expressed shock at hearing the reports from Paris.
“I was very surprised, like many of my compatriots, to learn of the death of the Gabonese president via French television. There are procedures: to begin with, the president has a family,” he said.
A Spanish diplomat also separately said that Bongo is alive.
France’s Defence Minister Herve Morin declined to confirm the reported death, but commented that “he was a great figure of Africa” and a “man who had influence”.
Over the past months, Bongo had been embroiled in a row with Paris over a French inquiry into luxury properties he had bought in the country and claims by anti-corruption activists they were acquired with embezzled state funds.
A French court decision in February to freeze Bongo’s bank accounts added fuel to the fire and his government accused France of waging a “campaign to destabilise” the country.
Meanwhile, Gabon’s Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the French ambassador, Jean-Didier Rollin, to protest after French media reported that Bongo had died.
“We wanted to tell the French authorities of our indignation and our protest at the way this affair has been handled by the public media,” Gabon’s Junior Foreign Minister, Noel Nelson Massone, said in Libreville, after Rollin was called in.
“The whole international community has followed with astonishment and indignation the erroneous news released by French public and private media, which has also been commented on by several French officials,” he added.
Massone made no comment on the health of Bongo — AFP