Gabon Coup: How President Ali Bongo Paid Messi £2.5 Million & Drove Him Around
Shortly after President Ali Bongo was declared the winner in a disputed election held on Saturday, August 17, the military staged a coup and annulled the results.
To this end, discussions about Bongo’s tyranny, corruption and abuse of power which have characterised his reign over the years, including how he paid legendary Argentina forward Lionel Messi a whopping £2.5 million when he came to Gabon have been brought to the fore.
In a series of reports that surfaced in major tabloids in relation to the aforementioned allegations, it was alleged that Lionel Messi received a minimum of £2.4 million in cash for endorsing one of Africa’s most corrupt dictators.
The 28-year-old football icon sparked controversy when he visited Gabon, a former French colony, as a guest of President Ali Bongo in July 2015.
During his visit, Messi, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, unveiled the foundation stones for a new stadium in Port-Gentil and participated in the opening of a new restaurant owned by the Bongo family, publicly expressing his support for their regime. According to French media, Messi was compensated with £2.4 million for the trip, which he took with his former Barcelona teammate, Deco.
However, Bongo attempted to explain Messi’s appearance. He said: ‘When I was in Barcelona a few years ago, I met Messi, who had told me that he would come to visit me in Libreville.
‘It’s a promise he made me. He is a man of honour who just kept his word.’
The French police conduct routine investigations into allegations of corruption against the Bongo family, who purportedly possess up to 39 properties throughout France, including in Paris.
Ali Bongo Ondimba has been accused of embezzling national funds for personal gain and engaging in electoral fraud to maintain his position of power. According to a report by the PowerIndex research organisation, the Bongo family is accused of syphoning off 25% of the oil-rich nation’s gross domestic product over time, with Omar Bongo being one of the wealthiest heads of state globally.
Gabon Coup
According to a BBC report, a group of army officers in Gabon made a public announcement on national television, declaring that they have taken control of the government. They stated that they are nullifying the results of the recent presidential election, which declared Ali Bongo the winner.
The opposition had accused the election of being fraudulent. The overthrow of Bongo would end his family’s 53-year reign in Gabon. Gabon is a significant oil producer in Africa, and its land is mostly covered by forests. It recently joined the Commonwealth in June 2022, becoming one of the few members that was not a British colony.
The announcement was made by twelve soldiers on Wednesday morning, who also declared the dissolution of all the institutions of the republic. They further stated that the country’s borders have been closed until further notice. If confirmed, this would be the eighth coup in former French colonies in Africa in the past three years.
However, most of the others have been in the Sahel region, where an Islamist insurgency has led to rising complaints that democratically elected governments are failing to protect civilian populations. The French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, stated that her country is closely monitoring the situation, while the European Union’s foreign policy chief warned that a military takeover would increase instability in Africa.
