A first time visitor to the University of Calabar will get to learn a few interesting facts. Male and female students refer to themselves as Malabites and Malabresses. The male hostel is fondly called the Republic of Malabo. You have to wonder, what in the world has Unical got to do with Malabo, the capital of the small Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea, located in the island of Bioko and about 100 km off the coast of southern Nigeria. But we will get to that in a minute.
After about 300 years in Portuguese possession, the colony was ceded to Spain since the former could not find a way to make it profitable, hence giving Madrid access to African slaves to service her plantation in the Americas. But with many of the indigenous Bubi population decimated by disease and others resisting forced labour, Spain’s initial effort to take control met with great difficulty and they were having trouble finding people to work in cocoa plantations.
The reign of terror that unfolded under President Francisco Macias saw to the massive clamp down on religious groups like the Catholic Church and brutal treatment of any dissenting voice including the Igbo contract labourers that worked in Bioko cocoa plantations. As a result, there was a mass exodus and almost a third of the population fled the country. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo toppled his uncle Macias in a palace coup in 1979 and has ruled Equatorial Guinea every since.
President Obiang is the world’s longest serving president and has been in power for over four decades. With a net worth of $600M according to Forbes, he is easily one of the world’s richest head of state.