When Bongo put out a call for the international community to "make noise" against the coup, it quickly turned into a meme mocking him, with dancers and content creators ridiculing his desire to stay in power.
Neither the military putsch in Gabon nor the street response to it are unique. Since 2020, there have been nine coups in West Africa, Central Africa and the Sahel region.
Mali opened the floodgates three years ago when the army staged a mutiny and subsequently undertook a coup led by Colonel Assimi Goita — who then followed up with another coup against an interim administration in May 2021.
Four months later, in September, Guinea followed with a military coup against President Alpha Conde. Sudan’s civilian-military transitional government was overthrown in October 2021. Earlier that year, in April, Chad’s army seized power after President Idriss Deby was killed on the battlefield while visiting troops fighting rebels in the north.
Burkina Faso joined this pattern of collapsing governments, with two military coups in 2022. Then, on July 26, 2023, the presidential guard in uranium-rich Niger overthrew democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, before the Gabon coup a few weeks later. Since the beginning of last year, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe have all witnessed failed coup attempts.
Tribal slaughter, it's what they do. It's what they've always done.