Francisco Macías Nguema (born Mez-m Ngueme, later Africanised to Masie Nguema Biyogo Ñegue Ndong; 1 January 1924 – 29 September 1979), often referred to as Macías Nguema or simply Macías, was an Equatoguinean politician who served as the first president of Equatorial Guinea from the country's gaining of independence in 1968, until his overthrow in 1979. He is widely remembered as one of the most brutal dictators in history. As president, he exhibited bizarre and erratic behavior, to the point that many of his contemporaries believed he was insane.
According to various sources, anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 of the roughly 200,000 to 300,000 people living in the country were killed under his regime, with tens of thousands more fleeing the country. He has been compared to Pol Pot because of the violent, unpredictable, and anti-intellectual nature of his government. at Nzangayong, Spanish Guinea. His parents had been expelled with the rest of their clan from what is today Woleu-Ntem Province, Gabon, at a time when the Spanish Colonial Guard had not yet exerted control over the jungled area. The family was part of the Esangui clan of the Fang people, Equatorial Guinea's majority ethnic group. His family settled in Mongomo, where he was raised. Other accounts claims that his father was merely a local Fang noble. According to this version, at age nine, Macías saw his father being fatally beaten by a local colonial administrator, when he tried to use his title to negotiate better wages for his people. Macías was orphaned a week later when his mother committed suicide, leaving him and 10 siblings to fend for themselves.
Macías Nguema managed to survive several bouts of tuberculosis as a child, which left him with a profound fear of death for the remainder of his life. He was educated at a Catholic school through to primary level. after being baptized by Spanish Catholic missionaries, During his adolescence, he worked as a servant for some wealthy Spanish settlers, being described as helpful and obedient, which earned him ridicule and mistreatment by other non-Christianized Fang, and showed an inferiority complex with respect to the Spaniards. Regardless, he eventually became a clerk in the Spanish colonial administration, after passing the exam on the fourth try with assistance and some favoritism from colonial authorities, serving as court interpreter. In the 1940s, he also worked for the Forest Service in Bata, the Río Benito Public Works Department, and in the Bata Public Works Service. Unlike many Equatoguinean activists at the time, he was never jailed by the Spanish.
Even at this early point of his career, Macías Nguema already exhibited erratic tendencies. In a conference to discuss the future independence of Equatorial Guinea at Madrid, he suddenly began an "incoherent eulogy of the Nazis", claiming that Adolf Hitler had wanted to save Africans from colonialism and only got "confused", causing him to attempt to conquer Europe. At one point he declared himself a "Hitlerian-Marxist".
Presidency
Early rule
thumb|Signing of the independence of [[Spanish Guinea by the then Spanish minister Manuel Fraga together with the new Equatorial Guinean president Macías Nguema on 12 October 1968]]
After assuming power, Macías Nguema initially maintained a moderate policy and good relations with Spain, but within a year began to hold inflammatory, anti-European speeches and claimed that there were plots to overthrow him. His rival Bonifacio Ondó Edú then fled to Gabon. Relations with Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco had rapidly deteriorated. The coffers of the only two banks in the new country, the Banco Exterior de España and the Banco de Crédito, were emptied, meaning officials could not be paid. The country still lacked a national bank or its own currency, meaning the Spanish peseta had to be used, and according to the transition agreements with Spain, any biennial budgets approved for the territory prior to independence would need to be used, but Spain refused to honor its obligations.
In March 1969, Macías Nguema arrested his own foreign minister and political rival, Atanasio Ndongo Miyone, on treason charges, and killed him by defenestrating him. Macías then took photographs of Ndongo dying on the street, later showing the album to Newsweek correspondent John Barnes. Ondó Edú was also captured and brought back to Equatorial Guinea, where he and several other senior officials were killed at Black Beach.