They do not even go out with their phones.
In Gabon, a military government that came to power promising reform has moved steadily to silence the digital spaces where citizens speak, grieve, and organize. Beginning in February, social media platforms were suspended, VPN users detained at checkpoints, and a new law passed requiring verified identification for all online activity — measures that together form not a temporary emergency response but a durable architecture of control. The story is an old one wearing new clothes: a government that condemned its predecessor's authoritarianism has, in the eyes of those who once served that predecessor, reproduced it faithfully.
- What began as a security-framed shutdown of social media in February has hardened into a permanent legal regime requiring citizens to register their identities to speak online.
- Gendarmerie at urban checkpoints confiscate phones loaded with VPN software, and the fear has spread so deeply that people now leave their devices at home rather than risk detention.
- Activists like Nelly Ngabima have been erased from platforms through a calculated tactic — fake accounts created in their names, then reported for fraud until the real accounts vanish.
- An opposition leader who filed a legal challenge to the restrictions was arrested weeks later on charges his supporters say were resurrected from 2008 to neutralize him.
- Human rights groups and former insiders alike warn that the military government, despite its reformist branding and a more open 2025 election, is replicating the surveillance and suppression of the Bongo era it displaced.
In February, Gabon's media regulator shut down major social media platforms without warning, citing security concerns amid protests by teachers and health workers over wages and living costs. What followed was not a temporary pause but a sustained campaign to control how citizens communicate.
As Gabonese people turned to VPNs to bypass the blockade, the government deployed gendarmerie to checkpoints across Libreville and other cities, stopping young men, seizing phones, and detaining those with VPN software installed. Information moved only through whispered conversations. Activists found their accounts suspended — sometimes through a calculated method: fake profiles created in their names, reported for identity theft, triggering the removal of the real accounts. People stopped carrying phones in public. They stopped gathering.
Activist Nelly Ngabima, known as Princesse de Souba, had built a following of over 300,000 across multiple platforms before government officials warned her she would be made to disappear from social networks. She was. "Today, Gabonese people even struggle to send a WhatsApp message because they are afraid," she said. Ngabima speaks with particular authority — between 2015 and 2019, she worked as an intelligence operative, tapping the phones of politicians and military officials.
In April, restrictions were briefly lifted, but a law passed in February remained in force: all social media users must register with verified names, addresses, and national ID numbers. Platforms face fines of roughly £66,000 and their executives face prison for non-compliance. This was not emergency legislation. It was permanent infrastructure.
The digital crackdown sits within a broader pattern. A new nationality code, signed under emergency powers before parliamentary ratification, drew criticism for making it easier to strip citizens of nationality. When opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze filed a lawsuit challenging the restrictions, he was arrested in April on fraud charges dating to 2008 — charges his supporters say were revived to silence him.
Gabon is oil-rich, yet a third of its population lives in deep poverty. In August 2023, the internet was shut down before a disputed election, after which the military removed President Ali Bongo and General Brice Oligui Nguema seized power, presenting himself as a reformer. The 2025 election he won with over 90 percent of the vote allowed more media scrutiny than elections under the Bongos. But Ngabima, watching from France, is unsparing: "In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed." The same poverty, the same closed economy, the same barriers to care. What has changed is only the method — and the method now includes the power to make people disappear from the spaces where they once dared to speak.
In February, Gabon's media regulator shut down major social media platforms without warning. The stated reason was security—the government said it needed to contain misinformation, pornography, and incitement during a wave of anti-government protests that had erupted in December when teachers and health workers took to the streets over wages and the cost of living. What followed was not a brief pause but a sustained campaign to control how citizens communicate.
Within weeks, Gabonese people began installing Virtual Private Networks to slip past the blockade. The government responded by positioning gendarmerie at checkpoints across Libreville and other cities, stopping young men, confiscating phones with VPN software, and detaining the owners. Word spread through whispered conversations—the only reliable way to share information when the digital channels had been sealed. Activists and opposition figures found their accounts suspended, sometimes through the creation of fake profiles bearing their names, which were then reported for identity theft. The effect was psychological as much as technical: people stopped carrying phones in public. They stopped sending messages. They stopped gathering.
Nelly Ngabima, an activist known as Princesse de Souba, had built a following of over 300,000 across Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. Government officials warned her they would make her vanish from social networks. Within months, they did. She described the mechanism plainly: create a fake account with her identity, report it for fraud, watch the real account disappear. "Today, Gabonese people even struggle to send a WhatsApp message because they are afraid," she said. "They do not even go out with their phones."
In April, the restrictions were temporarily lifted—a gesture that suggested flexibility. But the government had already passed a new law in February, one that would remain in force. It required every social media user to register with verified names, addresses, and national ID numbers. Platforms that failed to comply faced fines of 50 million central African CFA francs—roughly £66,000—and their executives faced prison time. This was not a temporary measure. It was infrastructure for permanent control.
The social media crackdown sits within a larger architecture of restriction. In the same month, the government signed a new nationality code that critics say makes it easier for the state to strip citizens of their nationality and restricts the rights of naturalized citizens. When challenged, the government spokesperson Charles Edgard Mombo dismissed the criticism as mere procedural complaint—the code had been signed under emergency powers before parliament could ratify it, he explained, citing constitutional article 99. The substance, he suggested, was not the issue. The form was.
Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, a former prime minister and opposition leader, filed a lawsuit challenging the restrictions in a Libreville court. In April, he was arrested on charges of fraud and breach of trust stemming from a case in 2008. His supporters say the charges are fabricated, timed to silence him. Ngabima, who had worked as an intelligence operative between 2015 and 2019—her job was tapping phones and monitoring messages of politicians and military officials—now watches from France with the clarity of someone who understands the machinery. "In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed," she said. "You cannot remove Mr Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behaviours and then arrive and reproduce the same."
Gabon is oil-rich but a third of its population lives in deep poverty. In August 2023, the internet was shut down just before a disputed election. The military removed Ali Bongo and placed him under house arrest. General Brice Oligui Nguema, a Bongo relative and longtime member of the security apparatus, seized power and presented himself as a reformer. The 2025 presidential election he won with over 90 percent of the vote was more open to media scrutiny than elections under the Bongos—foreign journalists were allowed to film the ballot count. But the substance of governance, Ngabima argues, has not shifted. The same hunger persists. The same lack of jobs. The same barriers to medical care. The same opaque management of the economy. What has changed is the method, not the outcome. And the method now includes the power to make people disappear from the networks where they speak.
Citações Notáveis
This sustained intentional interference with access to essential digital communication platforms in Gabon is a blatant disregard for people's fundamental rights, specifically the freedom of expression and the right to access information.— Felicia Anthonio, campaign manager at the #KeepItOn coalition
In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed. You cannot remove Mr Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behaviours and then arrive and reproduce the same.— Nelly Ngabima, activist and former intelligence operative
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did the government wait until February to pass the ID verification law if the shutdown happened at the same time?
They didn't wait—they did it all at once. The shutdown in February was the emergency action; the law was the permanent structure built to justify and extend it. The shutdown could be lifted, but the law stays. That's the architecture.
So the temporary lifting in April was just theater?
Not entirely. It showed the government could be flexible. But it also showed citizens that the restrictions could return anytime. The real control isn't the on-off switch—it's the knowledge that you're registered, identified, trackable. That changes behavior whether the platforms are up or down.
Ngabima worked for the intelligence service. How does that change what she's saying now?
It gives her credibility and makes her more dangerous to them. She knows exactly how the surveillance works because she built parts of it. She's not speculating about what they're capable of—she's describing what she did. That's why they targeted her first.
The government spokesperson said the criticism was just about procedure, not substance. Is there any merit to that?
It's a classic move. Separate the form from the content so you can dismiss the complaint as technical. But the substance is the control. The procedure—emergency powers, signing before parliament ratifies—is just the mechanism that lets them implement it without debate.
What about the 2025 election being more open? Doesn't that suggest real change?
It suggests tactical change. The general won with 90 percent of the vote. He can afford to let cameras in. But the economy is still opaque, poverty is still deep, and now he has better tools to suppress dissent than his predecessors did. Openness in one place doesn't mean openness everywhere.
If people are this afraid, how does opposition even function?
Word of mouth. Whispered conversations. The same way people organized before the internet existed. But it's slower, smaller, and the government knows it. That's the point of the shutdown—not just to stop information, but to make organizing harder and riskier.