Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, Gabon's former prime minister and leading opposition figure, has been placed in pre-trial detention following his arrest at his home on Wednesday evening. He is under investigation for alleged fraud and breach of trust connected to a national cultural festival held in 2008, in which he served as a key organiser.

Prosecutor Dick Fabrice Boungou Mikolo confirmed the investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by a Gabonese citizen who claims not to have been paid for services rendered at the event. The sum at the centre of the case is five million CFA francs — approximately $9,000, or around 7,600 euros — which Bilie-By-Nze is alleged to have received but not repaid.

His party, Ensemble pour le Gabon (EPG), has forcefully rejected the charges, describing the arrest as "arbitrary, brutal, and manifestly contrary to the fundamental principles of the rule of law." The EPG argues that any unpaid debt stems from an obligation of the Gabonese state, not of Bilie-By-Nze personally, since he was acting in an official institutional capacity as head of the festival's organising committee at the time. The party has characterised the detention as politically motivated.

The case carries significant political weight in Gabon, a central African country that experienced a military coup in August 2023, when longtime president Ali Bongo Ondimba was ousted by the armed forces. Bilie-By-Nze, who served as Bongo's last prime minister before the takeover, subsequently reinvented himself as a prominent voice of opposition and ran in the country's most recent presidential election, finishing as runner-up to junta leader Brice Oligui Nguema.

The timing and nature of the charges — revisiting an event from nearly two decades ago for a relatively modest sum — have deepened suspicions among his supporters that the prosecution is an attempt to neutralise a vocal critic of the current authorities. No response from the government or the junta has been reported. The case is ongoing.