In Bongo’s visit, a trade-by-batter

A red carpet was rolled out for the Gabonese president-elect in Yaounde Friday as he began a diplomatic offensive following a contested election. President Paul Biya personally received Ali Bongo at the Yaounde airport. That treatment is reserved only for heads of states and persons ranking as such and showed Yaounde’s full acceptance of the outcome of the Gabonese poll.

It was to be expected: Biya was one of the first leaders to congratulate Ali Bongo on his election. Ali Bongo’s coming also ends long years of quiet leadership feuding between Yaounde and Libreville, in which Biya always almost appeared to be losing. Unlike his father, Ali Bongo is yet to assume office as president and could be half Biya’s age. That plays the longevity of service and age factors in deciding the sub-region’s next man in charge indisputably into Biya’s advantage.

But Ali Bongo had something to take out of the new arrangement. It was expected that Ali Bongo would use his stay in Yaounde to obtain assurance from a typically snobbish Biya to personally attend his inaugural. This is important because Biya’s absence from that event could significantly shape relations between Yaounde and Libreville, which until Omar Bongo’s death were at best cool.

Biya would love that opportunity to cement is supremacy in the sub-region, especially because he is already not in the best terms with the other southern neighbor Equatorial Guinean. Propped by oil money Malabo has demonstrated that it can be unpredictably nasty. Often, it is Yaounde that is bruised.