Step forward Bongo Jnr

Ali Ben Bongo looks like a chip off the old block. After the announcement yesterday that his father Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, had died in a private clinic in Barcelona, he immediately announced the closure of Gabon's air, land and sea borders.

Bongo Jnr (pictured left with Ivory Coast ex-rebel leader Soro Guilaume, right), who is the country's defence minister and favourite to succeed his father, also announced that "all components of the defence forces" had been put in place across the country. "I am calling for calm and serenity of heart and reverence to preserve the unity and peace so dear to our late father," he said in a televised address to the oil-rich nation's 1.5m people.

It was also announced that in the capital Libreville and across the country flags would fly at half-mast and that a period of 30 days' mourning would be imposed on the down-trodden population to honour the memory of Africa's longest-serving - and possibly most corrupt - leader. His body is due to be flown home from Spain for a funeral some time in the coming week.

Little is known beyond Libreville of Bongo Jnr except that he is the late president's eldest son and has been defence minister since 1999. Before that he was foreign minister.

He studied law at university in the United States where he clearly enjoyed the many luxuries of being Bongo's boy. Among the perks were a legendary Stutz car - once the car of choice among rock stars and potentates - given to him by his father for his 20th birthday.

He left it behind in the States when he returned home because his father already had a fleet of them at the family's disposal, each finished with real gold dashboards and the leather seats replaced with fur because, according to Gabonese lore, the presidential derriere is not allowed to touch leather.

Ali Ben Bongo, now 50, is married with three children, and remains devoted to his mother, Josephine Bongo. She divorced President Bongo in 1986 and went on to become an internationally acclaimed singer and drummer, changing her name to Patience Dabany. Ali Ben, when he isn't closing borders and laying down the law, likes to write songs for her.

Bongo and his 11 brothers and sisters - nine of them by his father's second wife, Edith, who died earlier this year - stand to inherit the considerable wealth amassed by their father. But the French authorities could stand in their way. They have been investigating whether Bongo and his family used embezzled state funds to buy luxury property in France - Bongo is said to own more real estate in France than any French citizen - and in February this year froze Bongo's bank accounts.

A lawyer for Transparency International, the global anti-corruption campaigners taking on Bongo in the French courts, said yesterday that the President's death "changes nothing" in terms of legal proceedings, and that "several members of his family" remain in his client's sights.