Teodoro Obiang

Biography

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was born in 1942 in Acoacán, in the mainland part of Spanish Guinea. After schooling in Ebibeyin and Bata he trained at the military academy in Zaragoza, Spain, and under his uncle Francisco Macías Nguema, the country's first president, held several posts, including director of the notorious Black Beach prison.

In August 1979, after Macías had relatives killed, Obiang overthrew him in a coup, put him on trial and had him executed. He ruled at first as chairman of the Supreme Military Council, ended forced labour and freed political prisoners, but said little of his own part in the old regime. A 1982 constitution nominally restored civilian rule and made him president, and in 1987 he founded the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea, the only legal party until 1992.

He has been re-elected repeatedly, from 1996 with official tallies of 97 to 98 percent in votes that international observers condemned as fraudulent. Oil discoveries from the 1990s made the country a major producer, while his government is regarded as one of the most corrupt and repressive in the world, with relatives in key posts and family wealth under investigation abroad. He survived a mercenary coup plot in 2004, chaired the African Union in 2011–12, and abolished the death penalty in 2022.