Insults directed at President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, his mother, and his wife have drawn a strong rebuke from Hugues Ongoundou. In a particularly firm statement, Ongoundou clarifies that his stance is not about supporting the government or endorsing the Head of State’s policies. For him, targeting a mother and grandmother, who are far removed from the political arena, or the spouse and parents of a public official, crosses a fundamental boundary that transcends the individuals involved. Decrying a prevalent “verbal insalubrity” and the normalization of obscenity within Gabonese public debate, Hugues Ongoundou advocates for a clear distinction between the freedom to criticize and outright vulgarity. He also announced his intention to explore potential legal avenues to address these transgressions.
The offensive remarks made against the Head of State’s mother—a discreet woman, mother, and grandmother with no history in the political sphere—as well as those targeting his wife and the President himself, are profoundly serious. I must confess: these comments left me utterly stunned.
My intervention here is not political. I am not defending a record, an ideology, or any perceived closeness to power. I am addressing something far more fundamental: the dignity, values, and very soul of our nation.
It’s no longer just three people being insulted.
When a mother and grandmother, a stranger to political battles, is dragged through the mud with vile language simply because she is the Head of State’s mother, a critical line has been breached.
When a woman, a wife and First Lady, becomes the target of obscene comments, it is our collective moral compass that is under attack.
It is no longer solely the Head of State, his mother, and his wife who face these insults.
Symbolically, it is all our grandmothers, all our mothers, all our women, all our sisters, and all our daughters who are being cast into dishonor.
It is the very image of our country that suffers.
It is our values that are eroding.
Fundamentally, it represents a desertion of the spirit by the very essence of a people.
And I choose my words carefully.
The symbol transcends the individuals.
Within any nation, certain symbols rise above individuals. The mother embodies transmission. The grandmother represents memory.
The woman constitutes an essential part of family and society. The father, too, represents this chain of transmission connecting generations.
When these figures are publicly humiliated and turned into objects of political insult, a part of our moral heritage is trampled upon.
It is the symbolic potency of our country that is undermined.
Not in its trivial sense, but in what it signifies: power, uprightness, symbolic authority, and a people’s capacity to stand tall.
These excesses signal a suffering national body.
What has recently occurred should not be dismissed as a mere slip-up on social media.
These deviations are, in my view, symptoms of a national body that is ailing, suffering, and adrift. They reveal a gradual weakening of certain foundational principles.
There was a time when patriotism, respect for elders, consideration for parents, and a sense of honor were integral to civic education and cultural transmission.
Today, a portion of this teaching appears to have vanished.
It is the misfortune of virtue and the prosperity of vice.
We are witnessing an alarming reversal: the one who insults sometimes becomes a celebrity, the one who humiliates gains popularity, the provocateur garners more attention than the builder.
And when insult becomes a spectacle, when it transforms into entertainment, when it becomes a media commodity, virtue itself is ultimately relegated.
Every laugh, every trivialization makes us collectively responsible.
I will go further.
Every Gabonese who laughs at such vile remarks, shares them for amusement, or contributes to their dissemination participates, willingly or not, in their normalization.
Every citizen who accepts the transformation of political debate into an insult contest contributes to the erosion of our moral benchmarks. And each time we elevate an insult to celebrity status, canonize the insulter, or promote them simply because they create noise, we participate in the slow destruction of what should unite us.
We are all accountable when insult becomes entertainment. We are all accountable when it becomes a directive.
We are all accountable when those who insult become the most listened to. I am not here to curry favor, groveling.
I want to be unequivocally clear.
I am not here to flatter those in power.
I am not seeking recognition.
I am not defending the Head of State against his political adversaries.
I am here to say STOP.
There is an urgent necessity to act against this verbal degradation that is progressively invading our public sphere.
Conversely, I wish to commend those Gabonese who challenge the President and his policies without crossing these unacceptable lines.
Responsible opposition exists.
Men and women who know how to acknowledge what is done well and denounce what is not.
Citizens capable of opposing a policy with arguments, without insulting the mothers, fathers, wives, or children of those they confront.
That is the essence of true democratic debate. Activism has nothing to do with vulgarity.
Another confusion must also be dispelled. Being an activist does not grant unlimited rights.
Being an opponent does not mean one can say anything. Being free does not equate to being irresponsible.
Activism is a form of civic engagement. It therefore presupposes civic responsibility.
One can denounce.
One can investigate.
One can challenge.
One can protest.
One can question.
One can even be extremely harsh in criticism.
But obscene insults targeting a mother or a woman are neither an argument, nor a sign of courage, nor a demonstration of patriotism.
I have a father. I have a mother. And I am their son.
This sentence is perhaps the simplest in this entire statement.
I have a father. I have a mother.
And being their son connects me to an upbringing, a history, a responsibility.
I understand the respect owed to those who gave us life.
I know what a mother represents.
I know what a father represents.
It is precisely this upbringing that compels me today to reject the normalization of this media monstrosity.
I cannot ask my children to respect their parents tomorrow if, today, I accept the public spectacle of parental humiliation.
I will assume my share of responsibility.
Faced with this situation, I will therefore take my share of responsibility.
I will consult with legal counsel to examine existing legal avenues and the judicial actions that could be taken in response to such remarks.
This initiative will be strictly personal.
I do not claim to speak on behalf of the Head of State, his family, his associates, or any institution.
I speak for myself.
As a Gabonese citizen. As a son.
I want to make it clear: my objective is not to silence political criticism.
Quite the opposite.
I hope that we can rediscover a political debate where intelligence, constructive disagreement, and responsibility progressively replace insult, obscenity, and humiliation.
We must choose between virtue and the normalization of vice.
Gabon cannot sustainably settle into this destructive pattern.
A nation is not solely destroyed by economic or political crises.
It can also be destroyed by the gradual collapse of its moral foundations.
When insult becomes normal, verbal violence becomes acceptable.
When verbal violence becomes acceptable, humiliation becomes a spectacle.
When humiliation becomes a spectacle, those who produce it become celebrities.
And when those who destroy values become society’s role models, state collapse begins with moral collapse.
I reject this grim inevitability.
I refuse to let our mothers become targets.
I refuse to let our women be used as instruments of political humiliation.
I refuse to let our fathers be insulted because their children hold positions of responsibility.
I refuse to let our children grow up in a society where vulgarity is rewarded more than virtue.
Enough is enough.
I do not ask anyone to love the President of the Republic.
I do not ask anyone to approve his policies.
I simply ask that we remain capable of respecting ourselves.
Because, ultimately, when we insult another’s mother, we also insult the idea we hold of our own mother.
And when a people no longer protects its own values, it begins to lose its soul.
It is now up to each individual to assume their responsibilities.
As for me, I have chosen to assume mine.
