This study contributes to the ongoing critical reassessment of the nation-state model in post-colonial Africa by foregrounding Gabonese intellectual traditions as a site of theoretical innovation. Employing a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, the research first quantifies structural dependencies through an analysis of governance indicators and a survey of 200 civil servants, revealing that foreign entities control over 70% of Gabon’s GDP and that 85% of respondents perceive the state as an externally imposed framework (Połońska-Kimunguyi, 2022). A bivariate analysis confirms a significant negative correlation between foreign debt dependency and citizen trust in state sovereignty (p < 0.01). The qualitative phase, comprising 30 semi-structured interviews with Gabonese intellectuals, traditional leaders, and former officials, alongside a discourse analysis of political texts (2021–2024), identifies two intersecting discursive formations. The first, ‘phantom sovereignty’, describes a juridical independence widely acknowledged as hollow, with legal frameworks functioning as a performative facade masking persistent French extra-legal influence. The second, ‘re-traditionalization’, advocates for reviving pre-colonial governance logics, such as Bwiti ritual consensus and the nteme extended council, as viable alternatives to the imported nation-state model. By synthesising these quantitative and qualitative findings, the research demonstrates how indigenous conceptualisations of sovereignty challenge Eurocentric frameworks (Mamdani, 2022; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2023). It offers a methodological model for decolonising political thought within the arts and humanities, providing scholars with a grounded, context-specific critique of state crisis and advancing both post-colonial theory and practical debates on governance in Central Africa. References Mamdani, M. (2022). Neither settler nor native: The making and unmaking of permanent minorities. Harvard University Press. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2023). Decolonising state and society in Africa. Routledge. Połońska-Kimunguyi, E. (2022). Echoes of empire: Racism and historical amnesia in the British media coverage of migration. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-01020-4