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North Gabon town awaits delayed body of late political champion

By Patrick Fort
Africa Supporters of late Gabonese opposition leader Andre Mba Obame line up in the streets of Oyem in his native region of Woleu-Ntem, northern Gabon, on April 29, 2015 waiting for the arrival of his body from the capital Libreville.  By Patrick Fort AFPFile
MAY 1, 2015 LISTEN
Supporters of late Gabonese opposition leader Andre Mba Obame line up in the streets of Oyem in his native region of Woleu-Ntem, northern Gabon, on April 29, 2015 waiting for the arrival of his body from the capital Libreville. By Patrick Fort (AFP/File)

Oyem (Gabon) (AFP) - With songs, tears and scuffles, citizens of Oyem in northern Gabon are waiting to bury their beloved opposition leader Andre Mba Obame in native soil, but his coffin was detained Friday in Libreville by other fans.

Mba Obame, whose challenge to President Ali Bongo Ondimba at the polls in 2009 led other foes of the regime to stand down in his favour, died in Cameroon on April 12 aged 57.

After tens of thousands of his backers turned out in the capital to greet the plane returning the body of "AMO", as he was generally known, the authorities intended on Wednesday to fly him on north to ethnic "Fang country", where he was hugely popular.

Instead, for two days Mba Obame's coffin has made several trips between the headquarters of his National Union (UN) party in Libreville and the airport. Each time it was prevented from being put on a plane because officials had to keep a crowd from surging on to the tarmac for security reasons.

"I've been crying," young UN activist Alexia Mendome said as she waited in Oyem, wearing a black and white "I am AMO" T-shirt. "I've cried every day since his death. I'm shocked that the body isn't coming. He was my father."

Authorities were said to be considering moving the body by road to Oyem, a distance of 600 kilometres (about 370 miles).

Many people in Gabon's fourth largest town, with a population of about 70,000, wore a T-shirt with a quote from their political hero: "I cannot choose how to die nor where. But I can decide how and why I want to live."

Long a senior figure in the regime of the late Omar Bongo Ondimba, who presided over the equatorial African nation and its oil wealth for more than 41 years before he died in 2009, Mba Obame went into opposition when the ruling party chose Bongo's son Ali as its presidential candidate.

After confronting Ali Bongo at the polls in August 2009 and being placed third by the Constitutional Court, Mba Obame joined a few other opposition leaders in founding the UN party, while still claiming that he had won the vote.

"This is sad. All our hopes rested on him" for the next presidential election in 2016, the retired Pascal Ndoutoume told AFP in Oyem as a virtual tug-of-war took place over the coffin.

Many "AMO" supporters believe that when he fell fatally ill, Mba Obame had been poisoned, a rumour that helped fan riots in Libreville when his death was announced.

"AMO was more than a human being, he was an ideology," construction worker Bikoro Pacceli said, while Oyem mayor Vincent Essono Mengue and Senator Jean-Christophe Owono worked to calm young hotheads in the impatient crowd.

"He doesn't die," Pacceli added simply.

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