Massive sex tape leak could be a ploy for power in central Africa
What the rest of the world sees as a sex tape scandal could in fact be the latest episode in the real-life drama over who will become Equatorial Guinea’s next president.
Over the past fortnight, dozens of videos - estimates range from 150 to more than 400 - have been leaked of a senior civil servant having sex in his office and elsewhere with different women. They have flooded social media, shocking and titillating people in the small central African country and beyond.
Many of the women filmed were wives and relatives of people close to the centre of power. It appears some were aware they were being filmed having sex with Baltasar Ebang Mr Engonga, who is also known as “Bello” because of his good looks.
Mr Engonga is a nephew of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and one of those thought to be hoping to replace him. Obiang is the world’s longest-serving president having been in power since 1979. The 82-year-old has overseen an economic boom that has turned to bust as a result of the now-dwindling oil reserves. There is a small, extremely wealthy elite, but many of the 1.7 million people in the country live in poverty.
It has also had its fair share of scandals - including the revelations about the lavish lifestyle of one of the president's sons, now vice-president, who once owned a $275,000 (£210,000) crystal-encrusted glove worn by Michael Jackson. Despite regular elections, there is no real opposition in Equatorial Guinea as activists have been jailed and exiled and those with designs on office are closely monitored. Politics in the country is really about palace intrigue and this is where the scandal involving Mr Engonga fits in.
He was the head of the National Financial Investigation Agency, and worked on tackling crimes such as money laundering. But it turned out he himself was under investigation. He was arrested on 25 October accused of embezzling a huge sum of money from state coffers and depositing it in secret accounts in the Cayman Islands. He has not commented on the accusation.
Mr Engonga was then taken to the infamous Black Beach prison in the capital, Malabo, where it is alleged that opponents of the government are subjected to brutal treatment. His phones and computers were seized and a few days later the intimate videos started appearing online.
Mr Engonga was quickly identified along with some of the women in the videos, including relatives of the president and wives to ministers and senior military officials.
As the computer equipment was in the hands of the security forces, suspicion has fallen on someone there, who, perhaps, sought to trash Mr Engonga’s reputation ahead of a trial. The police have called on women to come forward to open a case against Mr Engonga for the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. One has already announced that she is suing him.
As well as being related to the president, Mr Engonga is the son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo'o, the head of the regional economic and monetary union, Cemac, and very influential in the country.
“What we are seeing is the end of an era, the end of the current president, and there is a succession [question] and this is the internal fighting we are seeing,” said Equatoguinean activist Nsang Christia Esimi Cruz, now living in London.
Speaking to the BBC Focus on Africa podcast, he alleged that Vice-President Obiang was trying to politically eliminate “anyone who could challenge his succession”. The vice-president, along with his mother, are suspected to be pushing aside anyone who threatens his path to the presidency, including Gabriel Obiang Lima (another son of President Obiang from a different wife), who was oil minister for 10 years and then moved to a secondary government role.
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