The Biafran born Ali Bongo, the current President of Gabon has been re-elected for a second term in office.
He narrowly defeated his opponent Jean ping, having scored 49.80% of the vote against 48.23% Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet-Boubeya told reporters on wednesday.
Bongo won by 5,594 votes out of 627,805 registered voters. Turnout was 59.46 percent nationwide but soared to 99.93 percent in one of the country’s nine provinces — the Haut-Ogooue, heartland of Bongo’s Teke ethnic group — in a result hotly contested by the opposition.
Recall that prior to the election reports emerged that the President of Ali Bongo Ondimba is a Nigerian of the ethnic Igbo group. It is said that he was adopted during the Biafran war by his father, Omar Bongo who handed over to him as President.
This development was later confirmed as a court in western France allowed a family member of Omar Bongo to view the birth certificate of Ali Bongo following accusations that he lied about his country of origin.
The Gabonese constitution demands that one must be born Gabonese to serve as the head of state, but French investigative journalist, Pierre Pean alleged in a recent book that the President was actually a Nigerian and was adopted during the Biafran war in the late 1960s.
