Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. He is Africa’s longest-serving leader. FILE PHOTO | AFP
The West African state of Equatorial Guinea said Wednesday it
had thwarted “a coup” in late December mounted by mercenaries who sought
to attack President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa’s longest-serving
leader.
In a statement read on public radio, Security
Minister Nicolas Obama Nchama said: “Mercenaries... were recruited by
Equatorial Guinean militants from certain radical opposition parties
with the support of certain powers.”
The plot had been prevented thanks to an operation carried out “in collaboration with the Cameroon security services”, he said.
The announcement came after Cameroon on December 27 arrested 38 heavily-armed men on the border with the tiny state.
Two
days later, Equitorial Guinea’s ambassador to France, Miguel Oyono
Ndong Mifumu, referred to the incident as an “invasion and
destabilisation attempt”.
Suspects
The
suspects, taken into custody in a bus on the border, had rocket
launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition, according to his
office.
On Saturday, the 75-year-old Obiang said “a
war” was being prepared against his regime, “because they say I have
spent a lot of time in power”.
Obiang has been president for more than 38 years.
He
took power in a coup on August 3, 1979, ousting his own uncle,
Francisco Macias Nguema, who was shot by firing squad. He was re-elected
to a fifth seven-year term in 2016.
Equatorial Guinea
is one of sub-Sahara’s biggest oil producers but a large proportion of
its 1.2 million population still lives in poverty.
Coup
In 2004, mercenaries attempted to overthrow Obiang in a coup thought to be largely funded by British financiers.
Mark
Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was
reportedly involved in the funding and was convicted and fined in South
Africa.
In October last year, a French court handed
down a three-year suspended jail term to Obiang’s son, Teodorin, who is
also vice president, after convicting him of siphoning off public money
to fund a jet-set lifestyle in Paris.
He was accused of
spending more than 1,000 times his official annual salary on a
six-storey mansion in a posh part of the French capital, a fleet of fast
cars and artworks, among other assets. His lawyers said they would
appeal the ruling.
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