Gabon's first lady lives on food stamps in California-ABC News
by Dana hughes-ABC News, Tuesday, 08 September 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept. 8, 2009—The new president of Gabon, Ali Ben Bongo, is the son of the country's ruler for the last 42 years and a member of one of the wealthiest families in Africa.
Gabon's new first lady is American-born Inge Bongo. But there'll be no inauguration ceremony or redecorating of the presidential palace for her. Inge Bongo lives in California and is on food stamps.
The new president is confronting angry demonstrations in the streets of the country's capital, Libreville, and other cities protesting what they claim was a rigged election.
The beleaguered president-elect is also facing demands from his estranged wife to be allowed to take her place as first lady and to reform what she says is a lack of human rights.
Inge Bongo makes it clear that she doesn't expect her husband to quickly agree.
"I'm going to claim my right as first lady. I'm going to make a lot of noise. I'm going to take this opportunity to make some changes, whether he likes it or not," Inge Bongo told ABC News. "He can deny a settlement and a divorce. But he's a young man, he's 50. And I'm relatively young. I can just keep doing this forever."
Inge and Ali have had a tempestuous relationship after meeting 23 years ago on a blind date in California. It was love at first sight.
"We met on a Sunday morning before he was supposed to take a flight out," she says. "He ended up not taking the flight. We fell in love."
A worldwide whirlwind romance ensued with meetings in California, Paris and Gabon, until the couple married in Madrid in 1994. The marriage was made legal in the United States, according to documents obtained by ABC News. Inge was allowed to make her primary residence with their three children in California, visiting Gabon often while Ali would remain in the country carrying out his duties.
Inge says throughout her 23-year relationship with Ali Bongo, she travelled to Gabon often but could never adjust to the disparity between the rich lifestyle of the Bongos and the abject poverty the general population lived in.
"Gabon is a country of the haves and the have nots, and the haves were all Bongos," she says. "When I would complain, they literally laughed at me. They thought Americans were kind of foolish, that they didn't have time to worry about human rights."
Gabon is a small country in West Africa, with major oil reserves, and that means oil money. The country also had the same president for over 40 years, Omar Bongo, Ali's father. Inge's husband served as the country's minister of defense and was widely expected to succeed his father in the presidency.
Omar Bongo died in June, and the campaign to elect the next president began, with the election Aug. 30. There were 17 candidates, but Ali Ben Bongo, the most visible and best financed, was declared the winner. Accusations of election fraud and voter intimidation have prompted street demonstrations in recent days.
Over Omar Bongo's 42-year reign, he and his family amassed a large amount of wealth. The country enjoyed strong ties with its former colonizer France, and the Bongo family owns several homes in France, including a $21 million apartment in one of Paris' plushest neighborhoods.
The French government has frozen $900 million of the family's assets in response to a lawsuit filed by the anticorruption group Transparency International on behalf of a Gabonese citizen, who's accused the family of corruption, embezzlement and fraud.
Inge said the Bongo family would take frequent shopping trips to Paris and other cities around the world.
Inge Bongo Appeared on VH1 Show
"They wake up in the morning and decide what are they going to buy, but it's at the expense of their character," says Inge. "Shop and shop and shop. They charter 747s and fill them. Everybody would get an envelope and you could buy your car and whatever you want. There were fleets of Porsches."
Inge was also a beneficiary of the wealth. She says her three children attended top private schools around the world and lived a luxurious life complete with private chefs, drivers and nannies.
At one point, Inge Bongo appeared on the VH1 show "Really Rich Real Estate," where she put in a $25 million bid for a mansion in Malibu.
She also rented a home from Sean "P. Diddy" Combs for $25,000 per month (eventually suing him for landlord neglect of the home).
That changed about four years ago, when President Omar Bongo told his son that his wife needed to reside in Gabon, says Inge. She tried living there, but decided she could not make her permanent home in Gabon.
"[Ali] got very violent," she says. Inge claims that witch doctors convinced her husband that something was wrong with her. "He had me kidnapped several times, he had me mutilated, he beat me beyond recognition."
Pictures taken after the alleged incident show her bruised and cut around her waist. Inge escaped back to California, where Ali Bongo had tried to win her back several times, she says. She even travelled back to Gabon for short visits to try and work things out, but by that time the relationship was essentially over. Of those visits she says, "He treated me like a zombie."
Ali Bongo has since married a much younger Gabonese woman named Sylvia Valentin Bongo. In interviews and official announcements she is referred to as his wife, but legally Inge Bongo remains married to him. Her youngest son, whom she adopted with Ali Bongo, is 10 years old, and now goes to public school, while she says she lives off food stamps and the generosity of friends.
Ali Bongo converted to Islam years ago, allowing him to have more than one wife. Inge is not Muslim and says she has thought about divorce, even going so far as to obtain a lawyer in California to work out a settlement, but Gabon's new president has not responded. According to her, the last time she received money from him was more than a year ago.
"We had a pact that we'd never divorce. To me that didn't involve being broke," she says. "He promised he would take care of us."
Now Inge says she wants her rightful place as the new first lady of Gabon. She wants to make changes in the country's wealth disparity and the rights of women and children, and has called for the Obama administration to get involved in her case.
She says she sees some similarities in Obama being the first black president with African roots, and her being the first black American first lady of an African country.
"Hopefully, I can get the Obama administration to shine some light on the injustices against women and children and everything that I feel is wrong."
A spokeswoman for the government of Gabon told ABC News the government has no comment on Inge Bongo at this time.
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by Innocent Chia, September 10, 2009
Gabon's President-elect, Ali Ben Bongo, visits Cameroon on Friday 11 September in his first trip abroad since his election at the helm of the oil-rich central African state, Cameroon state media announced.
He will meet President Paul Biya of Cameroon who is widely seen as the new lynchpin of the so-called "France-Afrique" relationship between France and its former colonies on the African continent. That role was played by late Omar Bongo Ondimba, the president-elect's father, who was President of Gabon for over 40 years until his death in June.
Paul Biya was quick to congratulate Ali Bongo for his election, although the opposition in Gabon continues to profess that the results were not genuine. Libya's Muhammar Ghadaffi and France's Nicolas Sarkozy are the other Heads of State to have sent congratulatory messages to Ali Bongo.
In a rare show of mediation, Paul Biya was seen in the sidelines of the late Omar Bongo's funeral interceding with various protagonists of the succession crisis in Gabon. There is speculation that Biya might have weighed in favour of Ali as the candidate of the Bongo clan and the Parti Democratic Gabonais (PDG).
Ali Bongo's trip to Cameroon could thus be viewed as either an act of good neighbourliness or a show of deference to a political god-father.
BLACK VOICES EXCLUSIVE, 09/01/09 at 09:58 AM
Gabonese Democratic Party candidate Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba may have some explaining to do abroad -- and here in the United States.
While the presidential hopeful is focused on winning the Gabonese election -- he is among 3 candidates claiming victory in the Aug. 30 contest -- his estranged wife, Inge Bongo (nee Inge Collins), and their adopted children subsist on welfare in the United States.
The beautiful California native (pictured left leaving the welfare office in Riverside) told Black Voices that she still loves her husband.
Who's Zooming Who?
Bongo (pictured right in June) is the son of the late Omar Bongo, who served as president of Gabon from 1967-2009.
In 2007, Inge Bongo was seen on VH1's 'Really Rich Real Estate' shopping for a $25 million mansion in Malibu for herself and her husband. This raised a few eyebrows considering that the average Gabonian made the equivalent of $6,670 that year.
Now, she says she has gone from high roller to living off government assistance. Yet, her husband and his second wife, Sylvia Valentin, don't seem to mind.
U.S. taxpayers, however, should, because they are footing the bill.
For the Love of Money
Bongo and Valentin are under investigation in France for corruption, and so far, $900 million in assets has been seized from the couple. Ironically, Bongo has vowed to "redistribute the proceeds of economic growth and fight corruption and fraud."
It appears that the son may have more in common with the father other than DNA. The late Omar Bongo was also under investigation for corruption.
According to BBC, in 2003, Omar Bongo was named in one of the biggest corporate trials in France involving the oil firm Elf. Allegedly, he pocketed $16.7 million from Elf in exchange for preferential treatment over U.S. and British oil firms. As a result of the trial, many former Elf executives were jailed.
Omar Bongo's name once again popped up during a 2005 investigation into fundraising appropriation on the part of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. A U.S. Senate Committee investigation revealed that Abramoff had been offered $9 million to arrange a meeting between Bongo and President George W. Bush.
Records show that the family's financial history is sketchy at the very least. At the time of Omar Bongo's death in June, the family owned more real estate in France than anyone. Meanwhile, the average Gabonian would be lucky to own one piece of real estate.
Hood Rich, Cash Poor
Located south of Cameroon, Gabon was once a wealthy African nation due to the oil boom in the 1980s and the country's relatively low population (nearly 1.5 million people). But like many African nations, it succumbed to the temptation of foreign loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Nowadays, Gabon has joined a long list of African nations experiencing foreign exploitation because of financial misappropriation and dependency on foreign aid.
On paper, Gabon may be one of the wealthiest African nations, based on its GDP, but the country imports most of its products and suffers from high inflation rates.
Politricks
While the current election has been propped up as a democratic process, several thousand Gabonians don't see it that way. According to the Agence France-Presse, earlier this month, thousands of demonstrators rallied against Bongo, calling for his resignation as defense minister. One demonstrator who declined to be identified, said, "We supported the father, but we don't want the son. If people don't listen to us, everything will burn."
If Bongo steals this year's presidential election, as many believe he will, he certainly will not be the first African leader to steer an election in his favor. Quieting dissent through violence, payoffs to the opposition and other sneaky-handed tactics have been used in other African countries to secure election victories.
First Wife's Tale
While Bongo is living lavish in an $800 million presidential palace, Inge and their kids (ages 22 and 10) are living like paupers.
The Los Angeles-born Mrs. Bongo is, admittedly, not a saint, but she is legally married to her husband both in the United States and in Gabon. And here in the United States, polygamy is a crime.
When Black Voices caught up with the 45-year-old former interior designer said that she did not want U.S. taxpayers to have to support her and her children, and that she simply wanted her husband to man up.
"I'm trying to feed my children," she humbly stated. "I love him. And I still support him," she said, fighting back tears. "I'm going to vote for him. For the sake of the Gabonese people, he needs to win the election. I don't want to see Gabon become another Ivory Coast."
Inge said she believes her husband will make sure he wins the election at any cost.
When they met, Inge says, she was young and naïve. The couple had their first date in 1988 and were married in 1994. At that time, she says, she was happy and had little idea what her life as the wife of an African dictator would be like.
She didn't expect for her husband to have countless mistresses, and she certainly didn't think that she would be physically assaulted (Bongo allegedly physically and emotionally abused her for years). She revealed that she almost lost her life on a number of occasions.
If Bongo wins the election, she will be the first American first lady of an African nation.
And Inge Bongo is on welfare.
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