Gabonese Foreign Minister Michael Moussa Adamou died of a heart attack during a the the cabinet meeting, according to the government and a presidential source.
The government said in a brief statement on Friday that President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s ally, 62, had died “despite efforts by experts to revive him.”
A source close to the presidential palace said he “sat down at the start of the cabinet meeting and felt uncomfortable,” according to Agence France-Presse.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Musa Adamu was taken unconscious to a military hospital but died straight away this afternoon.
President Bongo described Musa Adamu on Twitter as “a great diplomat and a true statesman”.
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Bongo said, “To me he was first and foremost a friend, a loyal and devoted friend who I could always count on.”
Abdullah Shaheed, Adamu’s counterpart in the Maldives, also expressed his condolences to the late minister’s family on Twitter.
Musa Adamu was born in 1961 in the city of Makoko in the northeast of the country. He began as a presenter on national television and eventually in 2000, when Bongo was Secretary of Defense, Musa Adamu became Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense.
When Bongo was elected president following the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba in 2009, Musa Adamu served as his special adviser.
After serving as Gabon’s ambassador to the United States for a decade until 2020, he became defense and then foreign minister in March last year.
