Brigadier General Oligui Nguema is a Gabonese military official who is currently the Commander-in-Chief of the Gabonese Republican Guard, the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions’ chairman, and the interim president of Gabon. He is believed to have been a major contributor to the Gabonese coup d’état in 2023 that toppled his cousin Ali Bongo. He is also reputed to be a multi-millionaire, involved in a case of embezzlement, and connected to the South American-Ivorian cartels’ drug networks.
Early Life
Oligui, the son of a Teke mother and a Fang father, was born in Haut-Ogooué Province, Gabon, which was thought to be the family’s stronghold. He attended Omar Bongo University and is a relative of the former president, Omar Bongo. His father served in the military as well. In Haut-Ogooue, Oligui was primarily raised by his mother and her family.
Career
In Morocco, Oligui attended the Meknes Royal Military Academy. Up until his passing in 2009, he assisted President Omar Bongo as an aide-de-camp. At the Gabonese embassies in Senegal and Morocco, he later worked as a military attaché.
He was called back to Gabon in October 2018, taking over the Directorate General of Special Services (DGSS), the Republican Guard’s intelligence agency, in place of Colonel Frédéric Bongo, the half-brother of President Ali Bongo Ondimba. He famously began Operation Mamba again in 2021. In April 2019, he was then given the general rank.
General Grégoire Kouna, the cousin of the preceding president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was replaced as the leader of the Gabonese Republican Guard in April 2020 by him. He expanded the Special Interventions Section (SIS), a unique unit established under the President’s direct control, from about thirty to more than 300 members. Additionally, he wrote a song with the line, “I would defend my president with honour and loyalty.”
He owns many homes in the US that are worth more than $1 million, and he also assisted the Bongos in growing their international businesses, according to a 2020 Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation. He claimed that these transactions were a “private affair” when questioned about them.
