The president of the Gabonese transition is expected this Sunday in Congo-Brazzaville. General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema must be received by President Denis Sassou-Nguesso in his stronghold in Oyo. This will be the officer’s second foreign trip after neighboring Equatorial Guinea. The opportunity for him to relaunch checkered relations for more than 10 years with the Congo, while Libreville has been sanctioned by the Central African states since the coup d’état.
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The meeting could be the prelude to a warming up between Libreville and Brazzaville. Bilateral tensions first have family roots following the death in 2009 of Edith-Lucie Bongo Ondimba, both wife of Omar Bongo and daughter of Denis Sassou-Nguesso. The two countries fighting over its memory. Relations continued to deteriorate that same year upon the death of the Gabonese patriarch, with a standoff over his inheritance.
Added to this was the legal case of ill-gotten gains in France. Denis Sassou-Nguesso would have suspected Pascaline Bongo, the eldest of the Bongo siblings, of having implicated her grandson Omar-Denis Junior Bongo, known as ODJB, also half-brother of Ali Bongo. Family entanglements which have largely spilled over into the political sphere. Some leaders of Gabonese power even suspected ODJB of having presidential aims. They therefore saw him as a threat to Ali Bongo.
But Omar Denis Junior Bongo would, on the contrary, have good relations with General Oligui Nguema. Some cite him as a key player in organizing this meeting. The officer showed his desire for rapprochement, by sending several emissaries to the Congo in a few days. The officer also seeks to explain the reasons for the putsch, to demonstrate his good faith, in order to convince his neighbors to lift the sanctions, in particular his suspension of the Community of Central African States and the African Union.