After years of estrangement, the reunion of Gabon and Congo at the grave of Edith Bongo

Like every year, Oyo, a small town of 5,000 inhabitants, located 400 km from Brazzaville and stronghold of the Congolese presidential family, commemorated, on March 14, the death in 2009 in Rabat of the former first lady of Gabon and daughter of the current president of the Republic of Congo, Edith Bongo, née Sassou Nguesso. Dozens of officials responded to the invitation of the father of the deceased, Denis Sassou Nguesso, but it was the arrival of the new strong man from Libreville, Brice Oligui Nguema, who particularly attracted attention.

Accompanied by his wife, Zita, and hand in hand with Denis Sassou Nguesso, the general participated in the laying of the wreath in the mausoleum of Edith Bongo. Not since the death of former President Omar Bongo fifteen years ago has a representative of the Gabonese state attended the ceremony, relations between the Sassou and Bongo clans having continued to deteriorate, especially after Ali Bongo, son of Omar and his first wife, Patience Dabany, came to power in Libreville.

Red carpet

But the fall of the Bongo dynasty following the putsch of August 30, 2023 brought the two countries closer together. A first meeting between Brice Oligui Nguema and Denis Sassou Nguesso took place on October 1. She also took place around the grave of Edith Bongo, whom the putschist had “frequented and served for a long time” as personal aide-de-camp to the former Gabonese president, recalls Anicet Bongo, younger brother of Ali, close of Congolese power.

During this first stay in Oyo, Denis Sassou Nguesso rolled out the red carpet for Brice Oligui Nguema. The latter had come to seek the dubbing of his counterpart, in particular in order to reintegrate the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), from which his country had been excluded after the coup d’état.

Five months later, and while Gabon’s return to ECCAS was signed on March 9, the emerging ties between the two powers have not escaped some tensions, reveals the Africa Intelligence media, according to which Denis Sassou Nguesso does not did not appreciate that Brice Oligui Nguema planned to settle in the private apartments of former president Omar Bongo, on the fifth floor of the seaside palace. A minor dispute compared to those who opposed the Bongo and Sassou families to throughout Ali Bongo’s mandates.

Starting with those around the estate of Bongo father, who died in 2009. Denis Sassou Nguesso, who considered the latter as “a brother”, cannot digest the fact that his grandchildren, Omar Denis Junior and Yacine (from the marriage between Edith and Omar Bongo), do not appear in the will left by their father. According to the document, only Ali and his eldest, Pascaline, are universal legatees, inheriting assets estimated at several hundred million euros, while the other heirs benefit, as a meager consolation prize, from an allowance paid by the State… and abolished in 2012 by Ali Bongo.

“Will to harm”

After this episode, the quarrel grew between Denis Sassou Nguesso and Ali Bongo, erasing fifty years of close relations between Bongo senior and the Congolese leader, who became friends when the latter was still the collaborator of President Joachim Yhomby-Opango (1977 -1979). “Ali feels hatred against Sassou,” says Anicet Bongo, who asserts that the former president “had the desire to harm” neighboring Congo, with which Gabon shares more than 2,000 km of border. A resentment which grew in 2016 as the presidential election approached, according to a former member of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) close to Ali Bongo.

Candidate for re-election, Bongo fils then accused Denis Sassou Nguesso of financing the Gabonese opposition. The Congolese president actually appears to be the main financial support of the opponent Jean Ping, who is linked to the Congolese presidential family by family ties. The daughter-in-law of Jean Ping (married to his son Franck) is the sister of that of Denis Sassou Nguesso (married to his son Denis Christel). And on the family tree of the Congolese president also appears Alexandre Barro Chambrier, emblematic figure of the opposition in Gabon since 2016, married to the cousin of the first lady Antoinette Sassou Nguesso.

According to the former member of the CEO, the Congolese president’s ties with the Gabonese opposition for more than eight years have precisely enabled his rapprochement with the putschist general: “Even if Denis Sassou Nguesso initially condemned the putsch, he will “he does not regret the departure of Ali Bongo”, he believes.

Especially since the Congolese president and the new leader of Gabon share similar stories with the former Gabonese presidential family. Brice Oligui Nguema, very close to Omar Bongo, was sidelined when Ali came to power. Under the tutelage of the father, the soldier was destined to rise through the ranks quickly. But upon the death of his mentor, he was exiled as an attaché to the Gabonese embassies in Morocco and Senegal. He had to wait ten years before returning to grace and returning to the country to head the special services. So much so that today, the reconciliation policy he is pursuing with Brazzaville sounds like yet another revenge on Ali Bongo.