Omar Bongo Ondimba (Le Grand Camarade)

Soares is fascinated by the extraordinary survival skills of the oil-backed ruling class: some of Africa's longest-serving rulers - notably Gabon's Omar Bongo Ondimba and Angola's José Eduardo dos Santos rule over oil-producing countries...

Other characters in Shaxson's dramatis personae include President Omar Bongo and Eva Joly the Norwegian investigating magistrate who broke open the 'l'affaire Elf'...

On 22 June a judge in Bordeaux France found Gabon's President Omar Bongo guilty of accepting a bribe to free French citizen René Cardona from gaol in 1996...

STAYING SINGLE Government systems that have changed little from the single-party days of the 1970s and 1980s include Paul Biya's Cameroon and Omar Bongo Ondimba's Gabon...

Gabon's Omar Bongo Ondimba the doyen of African presidents described Sarkozy as a 'boy' (he's two decades younger than Bongo) who 'knows what he wants...

They have been involved in probing bank accounts held by (among others) Presidents Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon...

'For me both of them understand nothing' said with characteristic candour Gabon's President Omar Bongo Ondimba in power since 1967 and the doyen of African leaders...

Gabon’s Omar Bongo Ondimba Africa’s longest running head of state with 40 years in power was 71 in December...

The conflict lay dormant in the 1970s and restarted when President Omar Bongo Ondimba's son Ali Ben Bongo visited the islands in February 2003...

Mastery of the political chessboard and lashings of oil revenue have kept President Omar Bongo Ondimba in power for almost four decades and earned him re-election last December...

Having triumphed by massive fraud in November's elections (AC Vol 46 No 24) Africa's longest serving leader Omar Bongo Ondimba looks forward to seven more years as President but faces some embarrassing problems on his western flank...