Tonight we’re making a frenzied visit to Equatorial Guinea. Why frenzied you may ask? Well I’ve set myself a speed writing challenge to complete this blog post in under twenty minutes.
Start the timer.
Equatorial Guinea is another country I know practically nothing about (I’m really noticing a trend here!) One thing I do know is that like Ecuador it’s named after it’s equatorial location. However unlike Ecuador it’s not actually located on the equator. That honour goes to its southern neighbour Gabon.
A vast oil discovery off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in the 90s led to ramping up of oil production. Equatorial Guinea is now the third largest producer of oil in Sub-Saharan Africa - not a bad feat for a country smaller than Albania.
It’s also in some measures now Africa’s richest nation. According to the World Bank Equatorial Guinea has the highest Gross National Income per capita of any African country. This is hugely misleading though as Equatorial Guinea suffers from the highest income inequality in the world and ranks very poorly on the UN Human Development Index.
A good old public domain map of Equatorial Guinea. Photos of this country are hard to come by.
Equatorial Guinea may only have a small population of 1.4 million people, but the oil wealth sadly hasn’t trickled down to ordinary Equatoguineans. Wow I love the word Equatoguinean. I wonder how many times I can use it.
Equatorial Guinea actually has a lot in common with Angola, the oil wealth is not trickling down to the population. Like Angola Equatorial Guinea ice run by a family dynasty who take care of themselves but do a terrible job at looking out for regular Equatoguineans.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has been in his post since 1979 and has earned the title of Africa’s longest serving president. Not only does this man have stamina, he’s also great at looking out for his family, with his sons taking the posts of vice-president and minister for mines and hydrocarbons. Why care about having a meaningful multi-party democracy when you can just keep it in the family?
Stop the timer!
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