It’s Likely That in The 7 Decades Of Independence, Corrupt African Leaders Have Stolen $500Bn From The People. Who Is/Was The Top of The Class?
On June 13, 2002, then-Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said corrupt African leaders had stolen at least $140Bn from their people in the decades since independence.
In August 2015, an estimate said that all in all, over the past 50 years, the continent had lost more than $1 Trillion to corruption.
In the two decades since crooked leaders have likely stolen something close to that. The stars are Sudan’s former military-turned-civilian ruler Omar al-Bashir, who was forced out of office by street protestors and an uneasy army in 2019. Years before his ouster, Wikileaks claimed he had siphoned $9Bn in oil money and deposited it in foreign accounts. At his trial two years ago, Bashir admitted to investigators that he received $90 million from Saudi royals alone.
Nigerian military dictator Sani Abacha, who reportedly looted between $1bn and $5bn in five years, is also on the podium. He is tied with another soldier strongman, DRC’s (then Zaire) corrupt and lecherous Mobutu Sese Seko who is believed to have stolen at least $5 billion over his 32-year rule.
There was a figure of $910 million (844 million Euros) dropped around in 2017 when Uncle Bob Mugabe was ejected from State House at the ripe old age of 93.
There were others, but they were playing in the kids’ league. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is alleged to have pocketed $17 million. Tunisia’s Ben Ali is alleged to have stolen about the same amount too.
In Gabon, where President Ali Bongo has been freshly deposed in a coup, a French court a short while back estimated that the Bongo family's luxurious assets which include a private hotel of 58,125 square feet and other apartments in posh districts of Paris worth
approximately $92.4 million. When the numbers are totted, over 56 years of the Bongo family heist could be in the billions of dollars.
Yet, that might be peanuts, compared to oil-Equatorial Guinea where the corrupt and cruel Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been president for a record 44 years. Mbasogo overthrew (and later executed) his vicious uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema, in 1979. Uncle Nguema had been president for 11 years. For 55 years Equatorial Guinea, though not a monarchy, has been ruled by the Nguema family. The Nguema family’s extravagance, especially of the playboy son and Vice President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue – luxury supercars, yachts, expensive watches, palatial homes in all the affluent suburbs of the western world – is legendary.
So, will it be in Cameroon where the Europe-resident and allegedly long-fingered Paul Biya has been on the throne for 41 years. There are at least two long-ruling African leaders, whose governments and families are mired in corruption, whose rot could shock Africa and the world over the next decade or so when they depart.
If we start from 1956 when Sudan gained independence, and 1957 when the Gold Coast (Ghana) followed suit, to this day, the continent’s corrupt leaders (including other politicians, officials, and their business buddies) could have easily “eaten” anything between $300Bn to $500Bn.
Let’s do the butterfly effect thing. Where would Africa be if that money hadn’t been stashed away, and the big people had been competent and scrupulous leaders?