Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema is hard to avoid in the small African country’s island capital, Malabo.
His lean frame welcomes visitors and announces new projects from large billboards; his solemn face gazes out from posters, T-shirts and umbrellas; his photo is in nearly every place of business.
It has been a busy time: the country was on show at the African Union summit last week, about 15km outside of Malabo in a multimillion-dollar complex built for the event.
At the weekend the 25th anniversary of Obiang’s Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea party was celebrated, and last month it was own 69th birthday.
Obiang is extremely popular, said a party cadre at a fun-run in honour of the anniversary.
He won more than 95% of votes at the 2009 election. “At the next one, he will win 100%,” he said, not giving his name because he was not authorised to speak to media.
“He has great charisma, he is developing the country. He gives us peace — for 32 years we have not had war.”
Obiang took power in a coup in 1979, usurping his notoriously ruthless and unhinged uncle Francisco Macias Nguema who was executed by firing squad.
In the mid-1990s oil was discovered in the little-known nation of 700Â 000 people and today it is the continent’s third sub-Saharan oil producer behind Nigeria and Angola. It is one of Africa’s wealthiest countries.
Tell that to Miguel, whose family home still does not have running water. The money just goes to buy some people bigger cars, grumbled the 21-year-old who did not finish school because he had to work.
Despite its riches, the country ranks a lowly 117 out of 169 on the United Nation’s Human Development Index that measures things like schooling and life expectancy.
It lists Equatorial Guinea as having a gross national income per capita of $22Â 218 dollars, about the same as $22Â 105 for Portugal which ranks a far better 40 on the index.
There has been some development: from the new airport a several lane highway passes gushing fountains to reach Sipopo, a marbled complex of Turkish- and Chinese-built conference centres, a posh hotel, palm-fringed beach and villas.
The road passes a new football stadium; on the other side Chinese workers finish up apartment blocks perhaps intended for the African Cup of Nations hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea next year.
Summit bypasses ‘real’ Malabo
Leaders at the summit in Sipopo would have bypassed the real Malabo with its potholes, crumbling buildings, rotting rubbish, open drains.
But even here there have been improvements, residents said, pointing to tarred roads, commercial centres, work to put the nests of electricity cables underground, restoration of Spanish-style colonial-era buildings.
“Before the roads were bad, the electricity was disrupted, no one had water for 24 hours,” said Rebecca Mokoye, a welder from Cameroon. “Before the policemen were rough, but now the city is developing.”
Mokoye earns the equivalent of €830 a month in the oil sector, around five times as much as she would in her own country. Foreign workers are treated well if they are legal, she said, but no one is allowed to openly challenge the government.
To ensure no challenges emerged around the summit, schools were closed and dissenters rounded up and threatened, the opposition said. Some were sent to the mainland.
Authorities also want visitors to stay in line. “You have no authorisation,” an official warned as he deleted photographs from a journalist’s camera.
The images deemed offensive: wooden shacks in a rubbish-strewn valley; boys carrying water in buckets; a market of cheap goods stacked in dark alleys; women and girls hawking fruit.
“Next time it will be your problem, not mine,” he said, threats of the kind that have seen others reporters told off or detained.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the country is one of the 10 most censored in the world.
Human Rights Watch says it is “mired in corruption, poverty, and repression”.
“Vast oil revenues fund lavish lifestyles for the small elite surrounding the president, while the majority of the population lives in dire poverty. The government regularly engages in torture and arbitrary detention,” it says.
Obiang told the summit his country is “victimised and besieged by a systematic campaign of misinformation”.
After criticisms of Sipopo, on which his government says it spent about €600-million and will turn over to tourism, he tried to win the sympathy of other leaders.
“When we don’t spend, they calls us corrupt governments which embezzle state money. When we spend on something positive, they accuse us of wastage,” he said.
Opposition leader Placido Mico is outraged at the spending on Sipopo, estimating the government would have spent double the amount it said it did.
“How can we spend that much money in Equatorial Guinea when 80% of people are without power, where at schools children sit on the floor, there is no materials, books?” he said. “It is scandalous.”
“How is Sipopo going to help the majority of the population?” he asked.
On the claims that Obiang is well loved, he says: “All dictators are popular. But we know it is false — it is by pressure and fear.” – AFP