Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Next generation of dictator bling
Children of African leaders display grotesque opulence while their people struggle to eat
THE Mugabe children might not suggest themselves as poster boys for good parenting, judging from recent media reports.
But Bob and Grace Mugabe can possibly take comfort from the fact they are far from alone among leaders in having foisted some overindulged and charm-challenged progeny on history. Indeed the R70 000 plus monthly rental reportedly paid for the young Mugabes’ accommodation in Johannesburg – after getting kicked out of Dubai for obnoxious behaviour and their matching champagne- lifestyle allowances – seem spartan by comparison with some of their peers.
Even by dictator-bling standards Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue – 48-year-old son of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo who, having seized power in Equatorial Guinea in 1979, qualifies as Africa’s longest ruling head of government – has exhibited a style that could reasonably be described as grotesque.
In 2006, for instance, Teodoro Jnr (known as Teodorin) blew around R10m in a weekend in Cape Town, acquiring among other things, two upmarket properties – one in Constantia, the other on the Atlantic seaboard – two Bentleys and a Lamborghini Murcielago.
He was just getting started in those days. At the height of his ostentation, Teodorin, who serves as vice-president although he is hardly ever in the country, also owned: homes in Buenos Aires and London; a $30m mansion in Malibu, California; a mansion in Paris’ 16th arondissement worth an estimated $200m if you include furnishings and paintings by Renoir and Degas, bathroom taps covered in gold leaf, a spa and a cinema, a hair salon and a sports centre. He had a private jet valued at $38m; at least one yacht – the 76-foot Ebony Shine – but allegedly two; an ultra-rare Koenigsegg One supercar worth $2.8m, a $2m Bugatti, as well as more Ferraris, Bugattis, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and the like than you could shake a dipstick at; his own vanity hip-hop music label. He also boasted a somewhat macabre trophy, the crystal-studded glove worn by Michael Jackson on tour promoting the Bad album.
Those were the glory days for Teodorin before the authorities in the US were finally stung into action by what the US Justice Department referred to as a “corruption-fuelled spending spree in the United States” – funded by around $ 300m obtained through embezzlement, extortion and money laundering.
Seizing assets and and freezing accounts,Uncle Sam took possession of property worth around $ 30m and a dozen supercars. Obiang was, however able to hang on to the Michael Jackson gauntlet and the Gulfstream jet.
The US action was just the beginning as European interests led by the NGO Transparency International put him up on charges of corruption and money laundering, mobilising the governments of France, Switzerland and the Netherlands to seize his $200m Paris mansion, the art collection he bought from the estate of fashion designer Yves St Laurent, another batch of supercars including the Koeningsegg – of which only seven were ever made – and his nautical treasure, the Ebony Shine.
The levels of conspicuous consumption associated with Teodorin Obiang are startling. But, while oil and timber rich, Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country of fewer than 1.5 million people, and the possibilities for rapacity and corruption remain circumscribed.
Angola, to the south, is far richer – as is Angolan princess Isabel dos Santos, 44-year-old daughter of Jose Eduardo, the strongman who is stepping down after 38 years of opaque rule. According to the capitalist bible Forbes, Isabel – with an above-the-line worth well in excess of $3bn – clocks in as Africa’s first female dollar billionaire.
With daddy’s help: largely via legal provisions requiring that all foreign entities seeking to do business in Angola do so in partnership with approved local interests. Notably, this has included a large part of the country’s oil reserves, diverted – controversially – from the parastatal Sonangol’s portfolio as a partner of the Portuguese oil company Galp Energia into her private hands.
The equity is worth well over $1.5bn on its own. In addition, Isabel dos Santos has vast interests in banking, communications, building and various other mining and resources enterprises.
Meanwhile, according to UN agencies, two-thirds of Angolans survive on less than $2 per notched up at the emporia of designers like Louis Vuitton and Roberto Cavalli.
Frantic attempts were made thereafter to launder the image of Denis-Christel as a philanthropist and responsible politician, and there were legal challenges to the Global Witness documents, but Britain affirmed the public interest value of the information.
In 2016, Denis- Christel’s French assets were seized by the authorities along with holdings in Switzerland linked to one of his nominees.
It has come to light that in about five years, Denis-Christel spent more than R5m on shirts – which, according to the French newspaper Liberation, he changes three or four times a day and “boasts” he “uses as “Kleenexes after wearing…”
If Denis- Christel Sassou Nguesso appears to go to some lengths to live the dream, by several accounts, the sons of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi were apparently moved to attempt to buy it outright. Thus, Gaddafi’s third son Saadi, was so keen to distinguish himself in football that laws were passed in Libya to prohibit mentioning the name of any player (only numbers were to be used) but Saadi’s in reporting on the game. Security personnel were called in on occasion to lend weight to refereeing decisions delivered in Saadi’s favour.
Saadi called in no less than Diego Maradona as a private coach, and one-time Olympic sprint champion Ben Johnson for speed training. He was also, mysteriously, contracted to Italian Serie A team Perugia in 2003 and later, Udinese – although in four years in the Italian league he made only two appearances from the bench, and, while styled as a striker, scored no goals at all.
Reappearing as commander of Libya’s Special Forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War, he was arrested in Niger and extradited to Tripoli, supposedly to face murder charges. These have not materialised; what has is a video allegedly showing him being tortured.
Another son, Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s second and heir apparent, used a family charity to make a £1.5 million donation to the London School of Economics – which awarded him a PhD in 2008. The LSE was also contracted for £2.2m to conduct a training programme for Libyan civil servants. Not only this: there were hefty donations to the UK’s Conservative Party and various lucrative contracts for infrastucture development in Libya – all subsequently renounced and repudiated when history caught up with the Gaddafis in 2011.
Captured by rebel militias in that year, Saif was sentenced to death for war crimes in 2015 but granted a quiet amnesty this year.
And various international agencies are still searching for the fabled Gaddafi billions.