We will not rush to elections and make same mistakes : Gabon coup leader:

 The leader of the coup that ousted Gabonese President Ali Bongo said he wanted to avoid a rushed start to elections that would "repeat past mistakes" as pressure mounts to hand power to a civilian government. Military officers led by General Brice Oligui Nguema seized power on Wednesday, 

just minutes after the announcement that Bongo had won a third term in the election. In , officials placed Bongo under house arrest and appointed Nguema as head of state. This ended the 56-year rule of the Bongo family. 

The coup - the eighth in West and Central Africa in three years - drew cheering crowds onto the streets of the capital, Libreville, but was condemned at home and abroad. "Our goal is to act as quickly as possible, quickly but confidently.""Acting as soon as possible does not mean holding rushed elections where we make the same mistakes, where the same people stay in power and everything goes back to the way it was," Nguema said in a televised address on Friday night. Regional bloc , the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), 

has called on its United Nations-led and African Union-led partners to support a speedy return to constitutional order, it said in a statement on the outcome of Thursday's emergency meeting. The Gabon's main opposition group, Alternance 2023, which claims to be the legitimate election winner, on Friday urged the international community to encourage generals to hand over power to civilians.

Bongo was elected in 2009 to succeed his late father to power in the year 1967.Opponents say the family has done little to share Gabon's oil and mining wealth. For years the Bongo family lived in a luxurious building overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. They own expensive cars and properties in France and the United States, often paying for them in cash, according to a 2020 survey by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global network of investigative journalists. 

At the same time, almost a third of the country's 2.3 million people live in poverty. Military commanders ordered the arrest of one of Bongo's sons, Noereddin Bongo Valentin, and several members of Bongo's cabinet on charges ranging from alleged embezzlement to drug trafficking. 

On Thursday, state broadcaster Gabon 24 reported that plastic-wrapped bags full of cash had been seized from the homes of various officers. The footage included a raid on the home of former Chief of Staff Ian Ghislain Ngoulou. Valentin stood next to Bongo and told the station that the money was part of Bongo's election fund. It is not known exactly when the photos were taken.

Lawyers for Bongo's wife Sylvia said Friday that Bongo Valentin was being held at an undisclosed location and the family feared for his safety. "We need politicians to manage the transition and, most importantly, the state," said Timothe Moutsinga, a Libreville retiree. "We expect a lot from this government and this transformation, the transfer of power to the civilian population."

  Seizure of power in Gabon was followed by coups in Guinea, Chad and Niger and, since 2020, two coups in Mali and Burkina Faso. These power grabs have undermined democratic gains in a region where insecurity and widespread poverty have weakened elected governments and destabilized the international powers whose strategic interests are at stake.