Nguema Teodoro The vice-president of Equatorial Guinea, Obiang Mangue, has pleaded with the West to cease exploiting Africa.
He was bemoaning how the Netherlands had been given the oil-rich nation’s.gq domain name “fraudulently” by French telecom company Orange SA.
He claimed that by doing this, the institutions in his nation were compelled to pay a fee to access the domain.
Two tweets he sent out on January 26 expressed his opinions. The first stated that Equatorial Guinea had “found that the French from the Orange corporation participated in fraudulent manipulation by transferring our domain #gq to the Dutch.
“Now, we have to pay them to use our own domain, which makes it challenging to set up an institutional website with gq for the country.”
The second contained his direct accusation of the West: “What have we done to France for it to plunder African countries in this manner? We are once again hindered by their trickery. The West should stop taking advantage of Africa,” he added.
Orange SA hasn’t commented on the allegations.
Former agriculture minister Obiang Mangue is quoted as saying that the US, France, and Spain meddle in his country’s domestic affairs.
A French court fined him 30 million euros ($32.9 million; £26.6 million) in 2020 for stealing public funds, gave him a suspended prison sentence, and ordered the seizure of his property.
The BBC Africa LIVE page said that the Equatorial Guinean mobile company Getesa launched the.gq domain name in 1997 and that it is reportedly vulnerable to spam, phishing, and other nefarious usage.
