Everything about Omar Bongo Ondimba totally explained
El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born
Albert-Bernard Bongo on
30 December 1935) became
President of
Gabon in 1967. He was just 31 and the world's youngest president at the time. After Cuban President
Fidel Castro stepped down in February 2008, he became the world's longest serving ruler, excluding monarchies. President Bongo is also Grand Chancellor of the
International Parliament for Safety and Peace, which is an International Organisation with volunteer diplomatic service (see
(External Link
)).
Biography
The youngest in a family of twelve children, Bongo was born on
30 December 1935 in
Lewai, a town of the Haut-Ogooué province in southeastern
Gabon near the border with the
Republic of the Congo.
Lewai was renamed
Bongoville in honour of Bongo's work to develop the town.
After his primary and secondary education in
Brazzaville (then the capital of
French Equatorial Africa), Bongo held a job at the Post and Telecommunications Public Services, before starting his military training. This training allowed him to serve as a second lieutenant and then as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, successively in
Brazzaville,
Bangui and Fort Lamy (present-day
N'djamena).
Political career
After Gabon's independence in 1960, Albert-Bernard Bongo started his political career, gradually rising through a succession of positions under President
Léon M'ba. Bongo campaigned for M. Sandoungout in
Haut Ogooué in the 1961 parliamentary election, choosing not to run for election in his own right; Sandoungout was elected and became Minister of Health. Bongo worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a time, and he was named Assistant Director of the Presidential Cabinet in March 1962; he was named Director seven months later. following the death of M'ba on
November 28.
Early in the 1970s (it has been reported as both
1970 and
1973), Bongo converted to
Islam, taking the name Omar Bongo. In
2003 he added Ondimba as his
surname.
In the early
1990s Bongo ended the domination of the
Gabonese Democratic Party and allowed
multi-party elections held in
1993 and
1998 in response to popular demand. Previously, it had been a one-party state for 16 years. According to official results, Bongo won the election with a large majority of 79.2%. He was sworn in for another seven-year term on
January 19,
2006.
Bongo has given himself the image of a peacemaker, playing an important role in attempts to solve the crises in the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Among Gabonians, he's seen as a charismatic and straightforward figure. He is also popular for the relative stability of his country during his reign.
He has been cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by
Elf Aquitaine, the former French state-owned oil group. One Elf representative testified that the company was giving 50 million euros per year to Bongo to exploit the petrol lands of Gabon. As of June 2007, Bongo, along with President
Denis Sassou Nguesso of the
Republic of the Congo, Blaise Compaoré of
Burkina Faso, Theodor Obiang of
Equatorial Guinea and Dos Santos from
Angola is being investigated by the French magistrates after the complaint made by French NGOs
Survie and
Sherpa (External Link), due to claims that he's used millions of pounds of embezzled
public funds to acquire lavish properties in
France.
(External Link)
Personal
Bongo is currently married to Edith Lucie Sassou-Nguesso. Daughter of
Congolese president
Denis Sassou-Nguesso.
His first child, daughter
Pascaline Mferri Bongo Ondimba was born
10 April 1956 in
Franceville,
Gabon. She was Foreign Minister of Gabon and is currently director of the presidential cabinet.
He was married to
Patience Dabany. Together they've a son,
Alain Bernard Bongo, and daughter Albertine Amissa Bongo. Ali-Ben (Alain Bernard Bongo) served as Foreign Minister from 1989 to 1991, becoming Defence Minister in 1999.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Omar Bongo Ondimba'.
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