Jean-Hilaire Aubame - Later Life

Later Life

M'ba's successor as President, Omar Bongo, allowed the return of Aubame to Gabon in 1972. Afterward, Aubame lived in Paris and removed himself from the world of politics. He did visit Libreville in 1981, on which occasion Bongo appointed him "special adviser"—a mostly honorary post. Although not a supporter of the Movement for National Renewal (MORENA), his home was bombed on 12 December 1984 by anti-MORENA extremists. Aubame and his family barely escaped harm.

Aubame, whom journalist Ronald Matthews descried as having "a curiously harsh voice, a severe appearance, and... a stern character", died in 1989 in Libreville. The French journalist Pierre Péan said that Aubame's training "as a practicing Catholic and a customs official helped to make him an integrated man, one of whom political power was not an end in itself." Michael C. Reed speculates that, had Aubame become president instead of M'ba, he might have made the country more democratic. After his death, a Libreville high school was established in his name.