Today, August 3, 2025, while the Obiang regime grandly celebrates the 46th anniversary of the 1979 military coup, we choose to speak on behalf of those who have no voice. Those who, like me, were sacrificed, exiled, and silenced for daring to embody a different Equatorial Guinea: one of competence, ethics, and freedom.

On this symbolic day, I publicly announce the extension of my criminal complaint in France, filed against the company ChampionX/Nalco and also against Gabriel Mbega Obiang Lima, son of the dictator, former Minister of Petroleum, and a central actor in a system that has methodically blocked my career, violated my rights, and put my life in danger.

I am a petrochemical engineer, trained in top schools, the first at this level on my country’s oil platforms. I wanted to serve my nation. I was met with contempt, marginalization, and then exile. Why? Because in Obiang’s regime, independent competence is a threat—especially when it refuses to submit to the logic of the clan.

 

The true legacy of August 3: 46 years of looting and elimination

What is officially celebrated today as “liberation” is in fact the beginning of 46 years of subjugation of Equatorial Guinea.

– An economy confiscated by a handful of families
– A youth stripped of its future
– An intellectual class systematically destroyed

My case is not isolated. It is concrete proof of how the whole system works. That is why we have decided, with my movement MILIGE, to turn this matter into a case of international jurisprudence. This trial on September 12 in Paris will not be silenced. It will make history.

Today, I have also submitted a request to the French judge for civil liberties, asking for urgent protection measures to be ordered, in light of the criminal nature of the regime I denounce and its opaque links between oil and repression. This is a high-risk case: in the past, three lawyers have already refused to take it on, despite its strong legal foundation. Even in France, the climate of fear persists.

We call on the French justice system to investigate the links between Gabriel Obiang and the multinationals Total and Repsol:

  • Total is suspected of having limited, under political pressure, the initial funding of my scholarship to pursue a master’s degree at INSEEC Paris — funding which was part of a petroleum concession contract — forcing me to take out a bank loan and face unjust obstacles in my studies.
  • Repsol had offered me a position in Madrid after my exile, as a continuation of a professional relationship I had built on my own merit during a master’s internship at INSEEC. I was welcomed by their executive team in Madrid in 2008. This recruitment project was blocked without explanation while Gabriel Obiang was already Minister. Repsol obtained an exploration concession in Equatorial Guinea in 2009.

This was no longer just local exclusion, but a coordinated international persecution aimed at eliminating me professionally. These transnational obstruction practices must be exposed.

 

Publication of the open letter to Teodoro Obiang Nguema

Today, we also release a public open letter addressed to the President of Equatorial Guinea, in which I remind him that his rise to power was only possible thanks to the efforts of families like mine, engaged in national construction since independence.

Without the sacrifices of that generation, without the historical movement that brought his uncle Francisco Macías to power, he would never have been promoted to lead the army, nor would he have had the opportunity to carry out a coup.

I therefore respectfully but firmly ask him to launch a national investigation into the ChampionX/Nalco case, to cooperate with international justice, and to initiate a genuine process of democratic transition.

 

To France, to Europe, to the world

Today we address an official letter to President Emmanuel Macron and the French government. This is not a simple labor dispute, but a fight for justice and truth in a globalized world where Western corporations continue to operate at the heart of African dictatorships.

We are not against multinationals. But when they accept—or turn a blind eye to—practices that crush peoples, they become responsible.

France now has a historic opportunity:

➡️ Either it upholds the law and delivers justice to a recognized political refugee,
➡️ Or it helps cover up the impunity of a corrupt, violent, and discredited regime.

 

To the international press, to independent journalists

At a time when illicit enrichment scandals still make headlines—such as the case of the Avenue Foch mansion—I remind you that this fight has already been documented by investigative journalist Paul Kenyon in his book Dictatorland. He exposes the mechanisms of enrichment and repression of the Obiang regime.

I solemnly call on the international press, on independent journalists, and on all those who defend truth to amplify this case, which goes far beyond a personal matter: it is an emblematic trial against a neocolonial system of impunity. There are three ongoing legal proceedings in France: before the labor court (Prud’hommes), in criminal court, and in the commercial court. The truth must come out.

 

To the people of Equatorial Guinea, to the diaspora, to all African peoples

Today, August 3, do not be complicit in the lie. This is not a celebration. It is a day of mourning for our sovereignty.
But it is also a day of resistance and a turning point.
What the regime is celebrating is its own survival.
What we are announcing today is the beginning of its end.

This trial is the trial of impunity.
It is also the trial of a system that is suffocating our country.
We have no oil, no army, no banks.
But we have the truth, the law, and the determination to rebuild a just, free, and respectful Equatorial Guinea for its children.

From today, August 3 also becomes the day the silence was broken.

Truth, Justice, Dignity.

Issued in Paris, August 3, 2025.

Raimundo Ela Nsang
Founder of the MILIGE Movement – Petrochemical Engineer – Political Refugee
🌐 www.raimundoela.com – www.milige.org