This played well with voters that had seen Ali Bongo enfeebled after a 2018 stroke and reliant on his French wife Sylvia Bongo and their son Noureddin Bongo Valentin implausibly get himself ‘elected' for yet another seven-year mandate...

Bongo we hear may move to Morocco once the legal position of his wife Sylvia Bongo Ondimba and their son Noureddin Bongo Valentin is resolved (AC Vol 60 No 25 The son also rises)...

That could take the form of an agreed period in exile for the ousted president and his wife Sylvia Bongo Ondimba currently detained separately in the Presidential Palace...

Others similarly accused of malfeasance are Ian Ghislain Ngoulou a close colleague of Noureddin from 2019 to 2021 when he was made chief of staff to Ali himself and presidential spokesman Ekogha son of a onetime army chief of staff who was head of communications at the Sylvia Bongo Foundation before moving to the presidency in 2019...

The task of sustaining the ruling family's public presence especially during his absences for treatment in Rabat and London has often fallen to his wife Sylvia Bongo Ondimba – who keeps up a flow of tweets on social educational sporting and wildlife affairs...