The government and the president in Gabon have confirmed that Foreign Minister Michael Moussa Adamo passed away from a heart attack during a cabinet meeting on Friday. He was 62.
“Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Michael Moussa Adamo, left today,” said Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon.
“He was a very great diplomat, a true statesman. For me, he was first of all a friend, loyal and faithful, on whom I could always count. This is a huge loss for the Gabon. RIP,” he concluded.
According to reports, he had a heart attack during a cabinet meeting. The government released a statement saying that despite professional treatment, he was brought to the hospital and died around noon.
Moussa Adamo was the special advisor to Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, and the country’s ambassador to the United States for a decade.
Peninsula Qatar reported:
Moussa Adamo, 62, an ally of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, suffered a heart attack and died “despite efforts by specialists” to revive him, the government said in a brief statement.
He “had sat down at the start of the cabinet meeting and began to feel unwell”, a source close to the presidential palace told AFP.
Moussa Adamo was born in the northeastern town of Makokou in 1961 and started out as a presenter on national television.
In 2000, he was made chief of staff for the defence minister, who at the time was Bongo.
When Bongo was elected president on the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba in 2009, Moussa Adamo served as his special advisor.
After a decade as Gabon’s ambassador to the United States until 2020, he became, first, defence minister and then foreign minister in March last year.
Tributes flood in following the news of his sudden death: