There is a small country in Central Africa called Equatorial Guinea. Most people cannot find it on a map. But between 1968 and 1979 it became one of the most terrifying places on earth.
The man responsible was Francisco Macias Nguema.
He was born in 1924 in a small village in what was then a Spanish colony. His father was a traditional healer. He grew up attending Catholic schools, became a civil servant under the colonial administration and rose quickly through the ranks. He was intelligent, charming and deeply ambitious.
In 1968 Equatorial Guinea gained independence from Spain. Nguema ran for president on a fiery anti-colonial platform. He won.
Within months the mask came off.
He promoted his allies to positions of power regardless of their competence. He declared Equatorial Guinea a one party state. Then he declared himself President for Life. Then he banned private education calling it subversive. Then he banned western medicine. Then he banned the word “intellectual”. Then he banned fishing so people could not build boats and escape the country.
Then he declared himself God.
He ordered that church services could only begin with the words “God created Equatorial Guinea thanks to Macias”. He had political opponents publicly executed in the national stadium on Christmas Eve while loudspeakers played a popular song. He kept the national treasury in a hut in his village because he did not trust banks.
By the mid 1970s he had become completely paranoid. He executed anyone he perceived as a threat. Ministers. Legislators. Intellectuals. Priests. Members of his own family. By 1977 more than 65 percent of the national legislators and at least ten people who had served as government ministers had been killed.
Of Equatorial Guinea’s 300,000 citizens it is estimated that more than 80,000 were either executed or fled into exile. The country became known across the world as the Auschwitz of Africa.
By the end of his time in power more than a third of the entire population had either fled the country or been executed.
In 1979 his own nephew Teodoro Obiang Nguema staged a military coup and overthrew him. Nguema was captured hiding in the jungle. He was tried for genocide, crimes against humanity, mass murder, treason and embezzlement.
When it came time for his execution no Equatoguinean soldier was willing to pull the trigger. They feared a posthumous curse from a man who had declared himself God. Moroccan mercenaries had to be brought in to do it.
He was executed by firing squad on September 29 1979.
Now here is what stays with me.
The man who overthrew him and saved the country was his own nephew. That same nephew has been president of Equatorial Guinea ever since. For over 45 years. And his government is consistently ranked among the most corrupt and least free in the entire world.
They removed one dictator and replaced him with another from the same family.
That is not just an Equatorial Guinea problem. That is an Africa problem. That is a power problem. The names change. The family stays. And the people keep paying.
Salim Zakaria
