Radical media practitioners in Equatorial Guinea have warned hangers-on around the country’s self-imposed dynasty to beware. They say that it is tempting for people to see the goings-on in a distant land as fairy tale, believing that such things cannot happen in their place. This is a passing reference to last week’s ousting of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
A report says that a young group of journalists held a rowdy session in the capital, Malabo, last Wednesday, during which they reviewed outstanding political and economic issues surrounding the country’s dictatorship. We hear that the most crucial point on the agenda of the journalists involved the three-month suspended jail term handed out to the son of Equatorial Guinea’s strongman, Teodoro Obiang, by a French court. That particular case was the first of the three cases of embezzlement that targeted the families of African leaders.
It will be recalled that the court found Teodorin Obiang, who is the country’s unelected Vice-President, guilty of embezzlement, money laundering, corruption and breach of trust. It gave the 48-year-old a three-month suspended sentence and a suspended fine of 30 million euros – both of which will come into effect if he commits another offense in France.
The young Obiang did not attend the trial at the middle of this year, describing it as a “farce”. His lawyers slammed an “activist decision” and said they were considering an appeal.
Teodorin Obiang is the son of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who seized power from his uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, in 1979. He named Teodorin Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in 1997, before promoting him to Vice-President in 2012. This is apparently the script that Mr. Mugabe tried to copy but ended up substituting son with his wife, Grace.
Teodorin, who is a frequent visitor to France, where he attended a school in Normandy that specializes in educating foreign leaders’ children, he bought a six-storey mansion near Paris’s exclusive Champs Elysées avenue, a fleet of luxury cars, artworks and other assets, allegedly spending 1,000 times his official annual salary.
According to the report, the journalists are compiling the facts and will issue a statement soon.
