Africa: Playboy waits for his African throne

A SPENDTHRIFT playboy is poised to take control of the tiny state of Equatorial Guinea, Africa’s third-largest exporter of oil, amid fears that he may plunge it into civil war.Teodorin Nguema Obiang, 35, eldest son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has been groomed to succeed his father, who has prostate cancer and heart trouble and is reported to want to leave office “to fight against death”. His weight is said to have shrunk to about seven stone.

Last month the ageing dictator sacked his 50-man cabinet but reinstated Teodorin as minister of forestry. While Teodorin is his father’s favourite, other family members and the major oil companies are believed to favour Gabriel, his younger brother.

A South African legal battle last month cast a spotlight on Teodorin’s wealth and extravagance. Although he has homes in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Paris, Teodorin descended on Cape Town two years ago and in the course of a weekend spent nearly £1.1m on two Bentleys — an Arnage T and a Mulliner — and a Lamborghini Murcielago as well as two luxury houses worth £3.7m.

Both houses have been renovated with such items as a £100,000 home theatre audio system, a £40,000 air conditioning system, a £3,500 fridge-freezer and a £1,000 ice maker.

George Ehlers, a South African builder who claims that he is owed nearly £5m for work carried out for the Equatoguinean government, is trying to seize the houses — an action vigorously contested by Teodorin and his father, who say they were bought privately.

The Bentleys — one of them customised with a cream interior and curtains for privacy — and the Lamborghini sit in their garages unused. This is par for the course for Teodorin, who once challenged French journalists to follow him while he raced around Paris in a Lamborghini, buying up to 30 designer suits in an afternoon.

Two-thirds of Equatoguinean oil flows to the United States, which makes the country’s fate a key concern both to American oil companies and the State Department. But Teodorin, a graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, has been more in the news there for his on-off relationship with the Grammy-winning rap-singer Eve (“Eve of Destruction”).

The couple met when Teodorin hired the 303ft yacht Tatoosh belonging to Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire, for a Christmas cruise with Eve and friends, apparently dispensing with the Russian beauties who normally surround him.

He spent nearly £400,000 on the yacht, a great deal more on Eve and was able to dangle his own TNO (“Teodorin Nguema Obiang”) hip-hop recording label before her. Eve was apparently sufficiently impressed by Teodorin’s largesse to brush off reports that he is known back home as the “minister for cutting down trees”, devastating hardwood forests largely to the benefit of his logging company.

However, she was reportedly discomfited by claims that Teodorin’s father was a cannibal. This led to headlines about Eve “dumping” him.

Teodorin owns Radio Asonga, the sole Equatoguinean private radio station, but the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders calls the country “a forbidden zone for free expression and an unchanging hell for journalists”.

Outside the country Obiang, the president, is accused of having profited hugely from allowing large-scale dumping of toxic waste.

Diplomats and even ministers have been caught smuggling drugs: indeed, when one minister was arrested in Spain for drug trafficking in 1997 he wrote a confession in which he alleged that drugs had been distributed in Europe using diplomatic bags and even the president’s luggage on state trips.

Obiang — chronically insecure since an abortive coup attempt in 2004 by Simon Mann, an old Etonian adventurer, which had embroiled Sir Mark Thatcher, the former prime minister’s son — has called in the Israelis to train his guards. He is said to be concerned that Teodorin’s ascent to power could lead to family feuds and open fighting among local factions.