Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is the President of Equatorial Guinea. Born on 5 June 1942 in Acoacan, Spanish Guinea (now part of Equatorial Guinea), into the Esanguii clan, he joined the Equatoguinean military during the colonial era under Spanish rule and received training at the Military Academy of Zaragoza in Spain. On 3 August 1979, he led a coup d'état that overthrew his uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, the country's first post-independence president, whose regime was notorious for mass executions, famine, and terror. Obiang had Macías tried and executed, positioning himself as Chairman of the Supreme Military Council until transitioning to the presidency on 12 October 1982. He has ruled Equatorial Guinea for over four decades, becoming the world's second-longest consecutively serving non-royal national leader after Cameroon's Paul Biya. The discovery of offshore oil in the 1990s transformed the economy from one of Africa's poorest to a middle-income nation, but his government faces widespread international criticism for corruption, embezzlement of oil revenues, human rights violations including torture and suppression of dissent, and dynastic succession plans favoring his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (Teodorín). Obiang's regime has been accused of money laundering and kleptocracy, with family members controlling key state enterprises and luxury assets abroad.