In November 2023, Noureddin Bongo was in the bowels of his grandfather’s presidential palace, being offered vodka by his captors. Except instead of giving it to him to drink, they held his head back and poured it down his nose until he told them he was going to die if they continued. “Then they start tasering me on the stomach — this is where I’ve got the scars,” Noureddin says.
Eton-educated Noureddin moved from Gabon to the UK aged nine and has spent the majority of his life here. Now 33, he claims to have always been spotlight averse. Yet back in Gabon, everyone knows his name. For 56 years a Bongo ruled the central African country; first, Noureddin’s grandfather Omar, followed by his father Ali.
