Emotions run high as body of Gabon opposition hero arrives home

Oyem (Gabon) (AFP) - The coffin of the Gabon opposition leader Andre Mba Obame finally arrived in his native north of the country Friday, after a marathon two-day journey marked by a huge outpouring of emotion and clashes with the police.

Thousands thronged the airport at Oyem on Friday waiting to bury the leader they acclaimed as the west African nation's rightful president, but his remains were delayed in the capital Libreville by the sheer number of people wanting to pay their respects.

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 supporters 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 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 onto 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."

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 number of other opposition leaders in founding the UN party, while still claiming that he had won the vote.

- 'Our hopes rested on him' -

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

Many "AMO" supporters believe that Mba Obame was 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 as Oyem mayor Vincent Essono Mengue and Senator Jean-Christophe Owono tried to calm young hotheads in the impatient crowd.

However, feelings eventually boiled over with police pelted with stones before the plane carrying the coffin finally landed in Oyem.

As it touched down, a huge crowd surged onto the tarmac shouting, "AMO, our elected president!"

Many women were in tears. "Even if he is dead, he is our president," said teacher Peggy Ntsame.

"Fifty years of the same family is too much. Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, all we know is that," said another young woman called Beranger.