Buhari’s Visit To Africa’s Longest Serving Dictator Who Overthrew, Executed His Uncle In 1979

Nigerians have been reading about President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Equatorial Guinea since Monday, but very few know the atrocious man in power there.

Mr. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who was born on 5 June 1942, has been President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979 when he ousted his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, in an August 1979 military coup. He is currently the longest-serving leader in Africa and the longest-serving president in the world.

He is credited to have overseen Equatorial Guinea’s emergence as an important oil producer, beginning in the 1990s. Obiang was Chairperson of the African Union from 31 January 2011 to 29 January 2012.

Born into the Esanguii clan in Acoacán, Obiang joined the military during Equatorial Guinea’s colonial period and attended the Military Academy in Zaragoza, Spain. He achieved the rank of lieutenant after his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, was elected the country’s first president. Under Macías, Obiang held various jobs, including governor of Bioko and leader of the National Guard. He was also head of Black Beach Prison, notorious for the severe torture of its inmates.

After Macías ordered the murders of several members of his own family – including Obiang’s brother – Obiang and others in Macías’ inner circle feared the president had gone insane.

Obiang overthrew his uncle on 3 August 1979 in a bloody coup d’état and placed him on trial for his activities, including the genocide of the Bubi people, over the previous decade. He was sentenced to death and, on 29 September 1979, executed by firing squad.

Obiang declared that the new government would make a fresh start from Macías’ brutal and repressive regime. He granted amnesty to political prisoners, re-opened all closed places of worship, and ended the previous regime’s system of forced labour. However, virtually no mention was made of his own role in the atrocities committed under his uncle’s rule.

The country nominally returned to civilian rule in 1982, with the enactment of a slightly less authoritarian constitution.

At the same time, Obiang was elected to a seven-year term as president; he was the only candidate. He was reelected in 1989, again as the only candidate. After other parties were nominally allowed to organise in 1992, he was reelected in 1996 and 2002 with 98 percent of the vote in elections condemned as fraudulent by international observers. In 2002, for instance, at least one precinct was recorded as giving Obiang 103 percent of the vote.