How Khalil Rihan Became the Power Broker Behind Gabon’s Mining Boom

Khalil Rihan holds no government post and appears on no official organisation chart. Yet since the August 2023 coup that brought General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema to power, he has become, by multiple accounts, the most consequential private citizen in Gabon’s economy, and, with his French son-in-law, a dominant force in the country’s gold sector.

In the marbled hotel lobbies and ministry anterooms of Gabon’s capital, few names carry more weight, and travel with less fanfare, than that of Khalil Rihan.

The 55-year-old businessman, who holds Lebanese and Gabonese nationality, has no formal position in President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema’s government. He does not sit in cabinet. His name does not appear on any published government organisation chart. But Rihan has become the president’s informal special adviser, a diplomatic passport-holder who functions, in the outlet’s characterisation, as Nguema’s fixer in the world of business.

Three years after the coup that ended more than five decades of Bongo family rule, Rihan’s reach extends across construction, luxury real estate and, increasingly, mining, an empire built, associates and observers say, in close partnership with his French son-in-law, Karl Rolly.

Together, the two men are reported to control, directly or through affiliated companies, the largest concentration of gold exploration and mining permits in the country, positioning them at the centre of Gabon’s push to diversify an economy long dependent on oil and manganese.

Neither Rihan nor Rolly has responded publicly to the reporting examined for this article, and Impact Newswire has not been able to independently verify the full extent of their mining holdings, which are not published in a consolidated, public form by Gabon’s mining ministry.

From the Bongo years to the “informal adviser”

Rihan’s business roots in Gabon reportedly stretch back to the era of Omar Bongo, the country’s long-ruling former president. But it is since Nguema’s August 2023 coup, which deposed Ali Bongo Ondimba after a disputed election and ended the dynasty’s 56-year hold on power, that Rihan’s profile has grown most dramatically.

Africa Intelligence describes him as having built what it calls a system in which public and private business interests are closely intertwined. He is reported to have taken a leading role in talks with foreign investors on behalf of the state, including tough negotiations in Paris with the mining group Eramet, the French owner of Comilog, which operates Gabon’s giant Moanda manganese deposit and in which the state holds a stake. Those talks come against the backdrop of a broader push by Nguema’s government to extract more value from Gabon’s resources: the president has separately told Eramet’s Comilog subsidiary it must begin processing manganese domestically or face losing its position, and Gabon has moved to acquire a stake in Eramet itself.

Rihan has effectively set the terms for parts of the mining sector, including signing bonuses reported to reach as much as $50 million (roughly £39 million) for some deals.

He fixes the conditions of the mining sector, including signing bonuses that can reach $50 million – Africa Intelligence 

Gold, licences and a son-in-law

It is in gold that Rihan and Rolly’s reported dominance is most striking. Gabon’s proven gold reserves run to more than 40 tonnes, according to industry estimates cited by the investment platform Arise IIP, and the sector has drawn a growing roster of exploration firms over the past decade, from Alpha Centauri Mining and Gabon Gold to the state-linked Société Équatoriale des Mines, according to figures compiled by the US International Trade Administration. Gabon’s Ministry of Mines does not publish a real-time, consolidated public registry of licence holders, which makes independent verification of any single actor’s market share difficult from outside the country.

It is against that opaque backdrop that Rihan is described as leaning on Rolly, his son-in-law, to help lock down commercial territory, alongside what the outlet describes as an aggressive “task force” run by an associate named Pierre Duro, which it says has used a mix of threats and intimidation to weaken rival operators, among them networks linked to the businessmen Michel Tomi and Mehdi Keack.

The claim that Rihan and Rolly, directly or through associated companies, hold the largest number of gold exploration and mining licences in Gabon rests on that same reporting chain. It has not been confirmed against a public licence register, and a definitive figure, how many permits, covering what tonnage, across which provinces, is not publicly available.

Brushes with scrutiny

Rihan’s rise has not been without turbulence. He was briefly detained in the aftermath of the 2023 coup over the discovery of large quantities of gold and cash in his possession, an episode that sits uneasily alongside his subsequent emergence as a trusted presidential adviser. He has more recently been named in an investigation into an alleged parallel scheme for selling prepaid electricity vouchers within Gabon’s state utility, the Société d’Energie et d’Eau du Gabon (SEEG).

A separate account of that SEEG affair, published by the Libreville outlet TV Plus Afrique, adds further detail: the utility’s then director-general, Joël Lehmann Sandoungout, was dismissed after being questioned by the task force, and that the probe was abruptly halted after Rihan himself was questioned by Gabon’s military counter-intelligence service, the DGCISM. The same account notes that Pierre Duro, the task-force chief named in the Africa Intelligence reporting on Rihan’s rivals, was, by its account, himself named in connection with the scandal he was tasked with investigating. Despite the unresolved questions, Rihan retains the protection of Gabon’s most senior security services and remaining what it calls the country’s indispensable businessman.

None of these allegations have been tested in a Gabonese court, and no charges are known to Impact Newswire to have been filed or upheld against Rihan in connection with them.

A wider pattern

Rihan’s ascent fits a pattern that has drawn attention from regional analysts watching Nguema’s transition: a self-styled reformist government that has moved to renegotiate terms with foreign mining and energy majors, including Eramet and, in the oil sector, Russian interests, while relying on a small circle of politically connected intermediaries to manage the details. Gabon’s broader shift from an oil-dependent economy toward mining, including manganese, iron ore at the giant Belinga deposit and gold, is charted in reporting by bne IntelliNews and the US trade department’s country guide.

For a government elected, after a 2025 constitutional referendum and vote, partly on promises to clean up the patronage networks of the Bongo era, the questions raised by Rihan’s role are pointed: how a single, formally unaffiliated businessman came to sit so close to the country’s most strategic economic decisions, and what oversight, if any, governs the licences awarded to him, his son-in-law and their associates.

Joana Choumali (Côte d’Ivoire)

Most Famous Photo: “Ça va aller” (It will be okay), a series of embroidered photographs reflecting on the aftermath of the Grand-Bassam terrorist attack.

Short Bio: Born in 1974, Joana Choumali is a visual artist and photographer from Côte d’Ivoire. Her work often delves into themes of identity, memory, and resilience, using photography as a means of personal and collective healing. Her “Ça va aller” series, where she hand-embroidered images of the Grand-Bassam tragedy, garnered international acclaim for its unique blend of art and documentation.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas (Ghana)

Most Impactful Work: His numerous undercover investigations, often presented in documentaries like those for Al Jazeera’s “Africa Investigates.”

Short Bio: Anas is a renowned investigative journalist who uses disguise and anonymity to expose corruption, human rights abuses, and criminal activities across Africa. His work often leads to arrests and significant policy changes. He’s known for his “name, shame, and jail” approach.

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