In Abidjan, diplomacy is not a matter of fatigues. At odds with the putschists who took power in the Sahel, the Ivorian President, Alassane Ouattara, welcomed for the first time the leader of the Gabonese transition, General Brice Oligui Nguema, on Thursday April 11, almost eight months after his coup of State against Ali Bongo Ondimba on the evening of his re-election, August 30, 2023. “Dear brother, you are at home here! “, warmly declared Alassane Ouattara at the start of a three-day visit by his host.
“Regimes change but relationships remain,” says the Ivorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Five months after their first meeting in Riyadh on the sidelines of the African Union-Saudi Arabia summit, in November 2023, the two men meet again to converge their diplomatic agenda. Brice Oligui Nguema, who came to power by force, is seeking respectability on the continental and international scenes. As for Alassane Ouattara, concerned by tensions with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, he proves that he agrees to speak with all countries, including those led by putschists.
The former head of Ali Bongo’s Republican Guard is trying to continue his work, already well underway, to normalize diplomatic relations. In March, Libreville resumed its place in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), a preliminary step before possible reintegration of the African Union, which had suspended Libreville after the coup. A return for which Brice Oligui Nguema came to “seek[r] the support of [his] elder in order to plead in favor of the lifting of sanctions”.
After traveling to Equatorial Guinea in September, then to Congo-Brazzaville, Cameroon and again to Senegal in January, the head of the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI) seeks to reassure his African partners and the Gabonese abroad, including those he plans to meet in Abidjan, on his desire to organize a presidential election by August 2025. With this in mind, the 49-year-old general launched a inclusive national dialogue intended to lay the foundations of new institutions and reassure the international community of its intentions to “return to institutional order” within a reasonable time frame.
A “legitimate” coup
Internationally, the general’s image is relatively preserved. His coup, ending the nearly fifty years of dynastic rule by the Bongo family, was much less criticized than in other countries. It is perceived as “more legitimate” in view of the institutional crisis in which Gabon was plunged, explains Bergès Mietté, political scientist and associated researcher at Sciences Po Bordeaux.
Formerly close to ex-president Omar Bongo, whose aide-de-camp he was, and cousin of Ali Bongo, this cacique of the old regime is not playing the break. “His regime also does not call into question the French presence and does not contest military cooperation agreements,” emphasizes Bergès Mietté – unlike the Sahelian juntas, which broke with the majority of their Western partners.
While relations are deleterious with the West African putschists, the Ivorian head of state has “understood that the presence of these juntas in certain countries is a fact, whether we like it or not, and that it is in its interest in exchanging with them”, notes Ladji Karamoko Ouattara, teacher-researcher in international relations. Abidjan thus responded favorably to the request for aid from Guinea, led by General Mamadi Doumbouya – who overthrew President Alpha Condé in 2021 –, after the explosion of an oil depot in Conakry in December.
With the two neighboring countries of Côte d’Ivoire, however, diplomatic-military incidents have increased. In 2022, 49 Ivorian soldiers were detained for six months by Bamako, causing tensions between the two countries. And in March, an incursion by Burkinabé soldiers into Ivorian territory sparked a skirmish between the two neighbors. Neither the Malian Assimi Goïta, nor the Burkinabé Ibrahim Traoré, nor the Nigerien Abdourahamane Tiani have set foot in Abidjan.
