Francisco Macías Nguema



Francisco Macías Nguema (born Mez-m Ngueme; Africanised to Masie Nguema Biyogo Ñegue Ndong; 1 January 1924 – 29 September 1979) was the first President of Equatorial Guinea, from 1968 until his overthrow and subsequent execution in 1979 at the hands of his own nephew, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has remained president of Equatorial Guinea to present day.

During his presidency, Equatorial Guinea became infamously known as "the Dauchau of Africa" due to the amount of people who were killed and by the time of his overthrow, his government had garnered condemnations from the United Nations and European Commission.

Depending on the source, during his government, anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 of the 300,000 to 400,000 people living in the country at the time were killed. According to Pennsylvania State University professor Randall Fegley, this was proportionally worse than the Nazis' rampage through Europe.

He has been compared to Pol Pot because of the violent, unpredictable, and anti-intellectual nature of his government.

Some observers have posited that Macías Nguema may have been a psychopath, a disorder potentially enabled, in part, by reported childhood psychological trauma, and that his behaviour could have been affected by other possible mental illnesses, as well as his reported periodic use of the psychoactive plant Iboga and large quantities of cannabis.