The security in Equatorial Guinea is falling apart: the weak and underequipped army is not ready to confront the gathering outside forces ready to hit the oil-rich African country.
Omar Mbiko, a specialist in Central and West Africa, writes that of Africa’s many difficulties, the most unfortunate is the upsurge in violent terrorism affecting the states of Central and West Africa. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and other countries in the region have experienced a security crisis.
He points out that Islamist insurgents in the region are now seeking to expand the territories under their control with the goal of acquiring a stable source of financing their activities. Equatorial Guinea is highly likely to fall victim of this plans. As Omar Mbiko puts it: “The emerging security threat is now growing even in more or less prosperous African countries, including Equatorial Guinea, which has large oil deposits likely to be of interest to militants.
The country has strained relations with France and the United Kingdom, which have imposed anti-corruption sanctions against vice president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue for corruption and embezzlement of public funds.
Analysts believe that because of its antipathy towards the regime, Europe will hesitate to militarily support the country if militant groups enter it”.
Indeed, the historically tumultuous relationship between the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and the West that have deteriorated over time, is a factor that inspired Equatoguinean authorities to look for new partners. In this case, Russia, as a strong global power, is quite an obvious alternative to the general West, because the Russian Federation has been recently offering a lot of appealing partnerships to various African countries. The Russian expertise in working with this particular region is of great value, especially when it comes to security sphere: the success of Russian specialist in the Central African Republic is the talk of the whole world.
The authorities of the Equatorial Guinea started working on the strengthening of the bilateral relations with the Russian Federation: the Equatoguinean side has even announced the opening of Russian Embassy in Malabo. However according to inside information, acquired by the Belgian news outlet Camer.be, the statement about the imminent opening of the embassy did not correspond to the agenda approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The Russian Foreign Ministry is in no hurry to open an embassy with a country that it considers Equatorial Guinea unreliable partner.
Military observer, Grégoire Cyrille Dongobada made inside information public, citing
diplomatic sources, who confirmed that the partnership between the Republic of Equatorial Guinea and Russia, which was being negotiated recently, failed due to the disrespectful behavior of Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. The source further indicated that “Russian is not up to cooperation with junkies”
The professionals who have been successfully providing security for the President of the Central African Republic were meant to start working Equatorial Guinea. Now, having lost the only partner who accommodates sufficient resources to counter the threats looming over the country, Equatorial Guinea is flat and plain heading for a crisis of unprecedented scale.