Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
Equatoguinean politician, President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (born 5 June 1942) is an Equatoguinean politician, former military officer, and dictator who has led Equatorial Guinea since 1979, including as its second president since 1982. As of 2026, he is the second-longest-consecutively-serving current non-royal national leader in the world, second to Paul Biya of Cameroon.
After graduating from military school in Zaragoza, Spain, Obiang held multiple positions under the presidency of his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, including director of the Black Beach prison notorious for its human rights violations. He ousted Macías in a military coup in 1979 and took control of the country as president and chairman of the Supreme Military Council. The country nominally returned to civilian rule in 1982, and in 1987 Obiang founded the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), which was the country's sole legal party until 1992. He has overseen Equatorial Guinea's emergence as an important oil producer, beginning in the 1990s. Obiang was Chairperson of the African Union from 2011 to 2012.
Obiang is widely regarded as an autocratic leader who leads a regime of widespread corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and nepotism. Under his rule, Equatorial Guinea continues to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. Equatorial Guinea is a dominant-party state, in which Obiang's PDGE holds virtually all governing power and has held all or almost all seats in the legislature since its creation.
The public source identifies “Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo” as equatoguinean politician, President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Teodoro, Obiang and Nguema.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q57385. VIAF identifies the subject as 2452394. The Library of Congress control number is n84175007. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1979, 1982 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.