Fresh facts have emerged on the leaked intimate videos of Mr. Baltasar Ebang Engonga, the 54-year-old head of anti-financial crime agency of Equatorial Guinea.

While many see the vault of videos of Engonga in uncompromising activities with different female partners including wives of pastors, top government functionals and persons said to be his relations, the motive behind the leakage of the videos is lost on most people.

Local sources in Malabo, capital of the oil-rich country, have exposed the politics and power play behind the exposure of the intimate tapes of Engonga.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, now 82 years old and growing weak, has been ruling the country and he is said to be considering retirement. This has triggered political schemes within the Nguema clan which has held the lever of power for decades, Political Economist NG learnt from local sources.

Political Economist NG reports that Teodoro Nguema has been president since 1979, 45 years ago, making him the longest-serving African president, and indeed the world.

Engonga who is a nephew of the president is being propped up to succeed Nguema by a political camp within the extended family’s political power clan. He was said to be gaining momentum and widespread acceptance, a trend that provoked angst and jealousy in Nguema’s nuclear family.

Mr Engonga, aside being the nephew of the president, is the son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo’o, who heads the regional economic and monetary union, CEMAC, and he is said to be very influential in the country and has the capacity to push through his son’s ambition.

The ageing president is said to be a fan of Baltasar Engonga who aside his good looks is said to be brilliant and endowed with good communication and administrative skills. As Director General of the National Financial Unit (ANIF), a position he has been relieved of on account of the intimate tapes, Engonga was said to have done well especially in probing and prosecuting presumed ‘enemies’ of President Nguema.

But there is a snag and a major barricade on his way to succeeding his uncle. Within Nguema’s family, there are also persons interested in succeeding their father. One of such persons is Vice-President Teodoro Obiang Mangue, who also nurses the ambition to become president after his father.

Political Economist NG reports that President Teodoro in 2016 unilaterally made his son Obiang Mangue the vice president against global outrage.

Here is the snag. As Baltasar was being marketed as likely successor to President Nguema, the vice-president, backed by his mother, was also scheming to occupy the same Presidential office. Obiang Mangue, having been vice president since 2016 is said to have become vicious with his scheme as the natural successor to his father effectively supported by his mother.

Together with his mother, they have succeeded in redlining other potential contestants for the position of president. One of their victims is Gabriel Obiang Lima (another son of President Obiang from a different wife), who functioned as oil minister for 10 years before he was schemed out of the position to a lesser position.

The major threat was therefore Baltasar. Equatorial Guinea is a small patch of earth with a population of less than 2 million and everybody, especially those at the summit of power, knows everybody. From one of the political camps, allegations emerged that Baltasar was doing more than leading the anti-financial crime agency to catch thieves, he was said to be helping himself with wads of cash in dollars and flaunts hefty bank accounts both at home and offshore. It was in the process of investigating the allegations that the intelligence officers stumbled on the intimate tapes in his phone and laptop including tonnes of cash in his home.

With the shock discovery, Baltasar’s political light is said to have been dimmed and this has effectively checked him out of the power equation for the hot seat of president whenever Teodoro deems it time to quit the stool he has occupied for over four decades.

Political Economist NG learnt that if not for the struggle for political power, especially the Presidential stool, the intimate tapes would not have been leaked as such tapes and cases of infidelity are common in the country.

Contributed by Xenia Nsue, Malabo