Insight with Adam Roberts - Wonga Coup

The Economist’s Adam Roberts talks to Richard Dowden about the Wonga Coup – an attempt by 64 alleged mercenaries, headed by former SAS officer Simon Mann, to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The Economist’s Adam Roberts talks to Richard Dowden about the Wonga Coup – an attempt by 64 alleged mercenaries, headed by former SAS officer Simon Mann, to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The target was the country’s president Obiang Nguerna, a relic of the continent’s tyrannical past who had been accused of corruption and cannibalism. The plotters were not, however, campaigning for democracy. Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s third largest producer of oil and they wanted a share.

The plot failed. The plotters ended up in appalling conditions – and many were tortured – in African jails.

Adam Roberts has been at The Economist since 1998. He first wrote on foreign affairs, largely from London. Between 2001 and 2005 he was the Johannesburg correspondent for the publication, covering political, business and economic news, mostly in southern Africa. He is now the online news editor for The Economist.

The Wonga Coup is his first book, though he also co-edited two volumes of other journalists' writing on Johannesburg and Soweto while in South Africa.

Richard Dowden is the director of the Royal African Society. Former Africa Editor of the Independent and later The Economist, he also made three television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 on Africa.

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