No shops, no schools: Equatorial Guinea's ghost town new capital

Nearly eight months after being officially declared the new political capital of Equatorial Guinea, Ciudad de la Paz remains a ghost town, almost entirely lifeless, tucked away in the middle of nowhere at the heart of the equatorial forest.

The city lies surrounded by dense vegetation, while its wide empty avenues host two brand-new hotels, a large hospital, a university, official buildings -- but still no residents, no shops, no schools.

"We still don't see anything here that could make us think we're in a capital," Cipriano Ela, a university lecturer, told AFP.

In early January, a presidential decree officially made Ciudad de la Paz, formerly Oyala, the new capital of Equatorial Guinea, an authoritarian oil-rich central African state of two million inhabitants.

Official institutions have been given a one-year deadline to move from the old capital Malabo, a city of about 300,000 inhabitants on Bioko Island in the Gulf of Guinea.

Malabo had been the capital since independence from Spain in 1968, but the move takes the seat of power into the mainland heart of the country, not far from the borders with Cameroon and Gabon.

Strategic move

"Apart from the identification centre, which issues ID cards and passports more quickly than others, nothing has changed," said a resident of Oyala Poblado, a shanty town adjoining the new capital.

The Ciudad de la Paz project was launched in 2008 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, in power for 47 years, for strategic reasons.

With infrastructure built by Chinese, South Korean and Italian companies, the relocation is being financed by the state, enriched by the discovery of major oil deposits in the early 1990s.

The president's son, Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, highlighted the symbolic significance of the move.

He said in a post on X in January that it "represents a firm determination to consolidate our sovereignty and identity" and would "drive the creation of thousands of jobs".

The project was "breaking with the structures inherited from the colonial period, after 57 years of independence", he said.

It recalls similar relocations in Africa, such as the transfer of Ivory Coast's capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro in 1983, or Nigeria's capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991.

In practice, the former capitals often remain more attractive, more populous and more economically dynamic than the new cities.

The government justified the move by citing the location of Ciudad de la Paz, in the centre of the country's mainland territory, with space around it for the city to expand.

The plan is for the city to extend over 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) and house a population of 65,000.

Authorities are trying to accelerate the moving-in process, signing an agreement last month with the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) to develop electrification and housing.

No housing or public services yet

A session of parliament was officially opened in July in the legislature's new building in Ciudad de la Paz, before deputies returned to Bata, the economic capital, located on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, about 170 kilometres (106 miles) away.

The rapid expansion of Malabo and Bata -- which has nearly 500,000 inhabitants -- over recent years is among the reasons that pushed the authorities to move the capital.

The concentration of infrastructure, public services, jobs and offices in these two cities has drawn a constant flow of people from rural areas and small towns, fuelling their growth, according to the decree published in January.

But a lack of housing, public services and shops is hindering the transfer of institutions and residents to Ciudad de la Paz.

Several employees of the ruling party, the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), told AFP they had already left Malabo but had since been stuck in Bata, about a two-hour drive away.

"No hospitals, no schools, no supermarkets. We just go down to Ciudad de la Paz to carry out a few small jobs, then we go back up to Bata," a PDGE employee said on condition of anonymity.

To encourage civil servants to move to the city, the government is banking on the construction of social housing intended for them.

In the meantime, Ciudad de la Paz is a capital only on paper, waiting for its first inhabitants to bring it to life.