By Web Master<\/p>\n
Junior officers say they have seized power in oil-rich Gabon, where the ailing leader’s family has ruled for 50 years.<\/p>\n
Soldiers in the West African country say they launched a coup “to restore democracy”.<\/p>\n
They took control of the national radio station at 04:30 local time (03:30 GMT) to read a short statement announcing a “National Restoration Council”.<\/p>\n
Tanks and armed vehicles can be seen on the streets of the capital Libreville.<\/p>\n
Ali Bongo succeeded his father Omar Bongo as president in 2009. He narrowly won re-election in 2016 in a poll marred by violence and accusations of fraud.<\/p>\n
Bongo, who has been out of the country for two months, reportedly suffered a stroke in October and received treatment in Morocco.<\/p>\n
He sought to put an end to the rumours about his health with a televised New Year message in which he said he was feeling fine.<\/p>\n
Soldiers said they had been disappointed by the message, calling it “a pitiful sight” and a “relentless attempt to cling onto power.”<\/p>\n
“It reinforced doubts about his ability to assume the responsibilities of his role as President of the Republic”, said Lt Kelly Ondo Obiang, the leader of the so-called Patriotic Movement of the Defence and Security Forces of Gabon.<\/p>\n
He specifically appealed to young people to “take charge of their destiny”.<\/p>\n
The insurgents called on soldiers to take control of the transport system, ammunition reserves and airports “in the interests of the nation”.<\/p>\n
There is no word so far from the government.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Web Master Junior officers say they have seized power in oil-rich Gabon, where the ailing leader’s family has ruled for 50 years. Soldiers in the West African country say they launched a coup “to restore democracy”. They took control of the national radio station at 04:30 local time (03:30 GMT) to read a short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7636,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634\/revisions\/7636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsdayzambia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}