By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ruslan Obiang Nsue, son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has reportedly been arrested and placed under house arrest for allegedly selling a plane belonging to the country’s national airline, state television (TVGE) reported on Tuesday.
“Ruslan Obiang has confessed that he was the person who sold Ceiba’s ATR, I will not allow myself to be carried away by familialism or favouritism, which is why I have ordered his immediate arrest and handing him over to justice,” his half-brother, Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed “Teodorin”, said on Twitter.
Authorities had November last year launched an investigation “after noticing the disappearance of the ATR 72-500 aircraft belonging to the national company”, Ceiba Intercontinental, which was since 2018 in routine revision in Spain, explained TVGE.
The source says Mr. Obiang Nsue, would have “sold the ATR aircraft to the company Binter Technic”, which specializes in aviation maintenance and is based in Las Palmas, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.
The president’s son is a former Secretary of State for Sports and Youth, and current Director of Ceiba Airport. He was first Deputy Director of Ceiba Intercontinental and then its Managing Director.
His arrest is unprecedented, being a member of the presidential family in the small oil-rich central African state.
Last December, news of the plane’s disappearance and its alleged sale by Mr. Obiang Nsue sparked national outrage.
Teodorin Obiang himself was sentenced by the French justice at the end of July 2021 to three years in prison, with a suspended sentence and 30 million euros in fines and the confiscation of his assets in France for having fraudulently built up a luxurious patrimony within the framework of the “ill-gotten gains” cases.
Equatorial Guinea is the third richest country in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of GDP per capita in 2021 according to the World Bank, but ranked 172nd out of 180 countries in the Transparency International corruption barometer.
