The story behind the Baltasar Ebang Engonga leak

What the remainder of the world sees as a intercourse tape scandal may very well be the newest episode in the true drama over who will turn into Equatorial Guinea’s subsequent president.

Over the previous two weeks, dozens of movies have been leaked – estimates vary from 150 to greater than 400 – of a senior public official having intercourse in his workplace and elsewhere with totally different girls.

They have flooded social media, stunning and titillating folks within the small central African nation and past.

Many of the ladies filmed had been wives and kinfolk of individuals near the middle of energy.

It seems that some had been conscious that they had been being filmed having intercourse with Baltasar Ebang Engonga, also called “Handsome” on account of his beauty.

This is tough to confirm since Equatorial Guinea is a extremely restricted society the place there is no such thing as a free press.

But one idea is that the leaks had been a strategy to discredit the person on the middle of the storm.

Mr Engonga is a nephew of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and a kind of considered hoping to interchange him.

Obiang is the longest-serving president on this planet having been in energy since 1979.

The 82-year-old oversaw an financial increase that was bust as oil reserves dwindled.

There is a small, extraordinarily rich elite, however lots of the nation’s 1.7 million folks dwell in poverty.

Obiang’s administration is closely criticized for its human rights file, together with arbitrary killings and torture. according to a US government report.

It has additionally had its justifiable share of scandals, together with revelations concerning the lavish life-style of one of many president’s sons, now vice-president, who as soon as owned a $275,000 (£210,000) crystal-encrusted glove worn by Michael Jackson.

Despite truthful elections, there is no such thing as a actual opposition in Equatorial Guinea as activists have been jailed and exiled and people with designs on workplace are intently monitored.

The nation’s politics revolve round palace intrigues and that is the place the scandal involving Engonga is available in.

He was head of the National Financial Investigation Agency and was answerable for combating crimes akin to cash laundering.

But it turned out that he himself was underneath investigation.

He was arrested on October 25 on costs of stealing a big sum of cash from state coffers and depositing it in secret accounts within the Cayman Islands. He didn’t touch upon the accusation.

Engonga was then taken to the infamous Black Beach Prison within the capital, Malabo, the place authorities opponents are alleged to be subjected to brutal remedy.

His telephones and computer systems had been seized and some days later intimate movies started showing on-line.

The earliest reference the BBC discovered on Facebook was from 28 October onwards the Rombe Journal pagea information web site run by a journalist in exile in Spain, who stated “social networks have exploded with the leak of express photos and movies.”

A post about X the next day he spoke of a “monumental scandal shaking the regime” whereas “pornographic movies flood social media”.

But it’s believed that they initially appeared one after the other a number of days earlier on Telegram, one of many platform’s channels identified for posting pornographic photos.

They had been then downloaded onto folks’s telephones and shared throughout WhatsApp teams in Equatorial Guinea, the place they brought on a storm.

Mr Engonga was shortly recognized alongside a few of the girls within the movies, together with kinfolk of the president and wives of ministers and senior navy officers.

The authorities didn’t ignore what was occurring, and on October 30, Vice President Teodoro Obiang Mangue (as soon as proprietor of Michael Jackson’s glove) gave telecommunications corporations 24 hours to discover a strategy to cease the unfold of the clips.

“We can not proceed to observe households disintegrate with out taking any motion” wrote on X.

“In the meantime, the origin of those publications is being investigated to seek out the creator or authors and make them reply for his or her actions.”

Since the pc gear was within the arms of safety forces, suspicion fell on somebody who, maybe, tried to destroy Mr. Engonga’s popularity earlier than the trial.

Police have known as on girls to come back ahead to open a case towards Mr Engonga for non-consensual sharing of intimate photos. One has already introduced that she is going to sue him.

What is unclear is why Mr Engonga made the recordings.

But activists have put ahead what could possibly be different causes behind the explosive leak.

In addition to being associated to the president, Engonga is the son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo’o, head of the regional financial and financial union, Cemac, and really influential within the nation.

“What we’re seeing is the tip of an period, the tip of the present president, and there’s a succession (subject) and that is the interior battle we’re seeing,” stated Equatoguinean activist Nsang Christia Esimi Cruz, who now lives in London. .

Speaking on the BBC Focus on Africa podcast, he stated Vice President Obiang was attempting to politically eradicate “anybody who would possibly problem his succession”.

The vp and his mom are suspected to be sidelining anybody who threatens his path to the presidency, together with Gabriel Obiang Lima (one other son of President Obiang from one other spouse), who served as oil minister for 10 years after which moved to a secondary authorities position.

Members of the elite are believed to know issues about one another that they would favor not be made public, and movies have been used up to now to humiliate and discredit a political opponent.

There are additionally frequent accusations of a coup plot, additional fueling the paranoia.

But Cruz additionally claims that the authorities need to use the scandal as an excuse to crack down on social media, by which loads of details about what is actually occurring within the nation circulates.

In July, authorities briefly suspended the web after protests erupted on the island of Annobón.

For him, the truth that a high-ranking official had intercourse outdoors of marriage was not stunning because it was a part of the decadent life-style of the nation’s elite.

The vp, himself convicted of corruption in France and who has had wealthy belongings seized in a number of international locations, needs to be seen as the person to crack down on corruption and wrongdoing at residence.

Last yr, for instance, he ordered the arrest of his half-brother over allegations he offered a airplane owned by the state airline.

But on this case, regardless of the vp’s efforts to cease the movies from spreading, they proceed to be seen.

This week he tried to look extra assertive by calling for the set up of CCTV cameras in authorities places of work “to fight indecent and illegal acts”, This was reported by the official news agency.

Stating that the scandal had “vilified the nation’s picture”, he ordered that any officers caught participating in sexual acts at work must be suspended because it was a “flagrant violation of the code of conduct”.

He wasn’t incorrect that the story attracted loads of outdoors curiosity.

Judging by Google information, search requests that embrace the identify of the nation have soared for the reason that starting of this week.

On X on Monday, “Equatorial Guinea” was one of many prime trending phrases in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, at occasions outpacing curiosity within the U.S. election.

This has left some activists annoyed who’ve tried to inform the world what is actually occurring within the nation.

“Equatorial Guinea has a lot greater issues than this intercourse scandal,” stated Cruz, who works for a rights group known as GE Nuestra.

“For us, this intercourse scandal is only a symptom of the illness, it’s not the illness itself. It simply reveals how corrupt the system is.”

Additional reporting by Peter Mwai of BBC Verify.