Deposed Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba has sent a passionate plea to the global community to "make noise" over the situation in the country where the military declared a takeover of the country's leadership early Wednesday.
The seizure of power came shortly after the announcement of the country's presidential poll results early Wednesday which Bongo won a third seven-year term.
In a 51-second video, Bongo said he is relying on his friends all over the world to be vocal about the dire situation in his country where he has been placed under house arrest by mutinous soldiers.
"I'm to send a message to all friends that we have all over the world to tell them to make noise for the people here have arrested me and my family," he said.
"My son is somewhere, my wife is in another place and I'm at the residence. Right now I'm at the residence and nothing is happening, I don't know what's going on so I'm calling you to make noise, make noise, make noise really, I'm begging you."
The BBC quoted the AFP as saying one of Bongo's sons has been arrested for "treason."
In a statement read out on State TV, the coup leaders said they had put forward the head of the presidential guard as the leader of the transition.
The officers also said they had dissolved all state institutions, including the constitutional court and parliament, and that they had shut the country's borders.
They cancelled Saturday's presidential elections in which Bongo won a third term with 64.27 per cent of the vote.
The mutiny could effectively end the Bongo family's 56-year stranglehold on power in the oil-rich West African nation.
Gabon's coup becomes the eighth in the former French colonies in Africa in the past three years, the other recent one being in Niger.
Five years ago on January 7, 2019, Bongo survived an attempted coup after junior military officers claimed they had seized power "to restore democracy" in the country.
Two of the soldiers were shot dead with the presidency saying in a statement "the situation is under control". Three others were arrested.
Coup leader Lt Kelly Ondo Obiang was on the run for a brief period, before being found hiding under a bed.
"The situation is calm. The gendarmes who are often stationed there have taken control of the entire area around the radio and TV headquarters, so everything is back to normal," government spokesman Guy-Bertrand Mapangou said then.
