10 000 Ekuele Masie Nguema Biyogo; Essai

Masie Nguema Biyogo — born Francisco Macías Nguema — renamed both himself and the island of Bioko after seizing power in Equatorial Guinea's first post-independence government. By 1978, he had declared himself President for Life and dismantled virtually every institution of state. This essai was struck during the most isolated period of his dictatorship, when an estimated one-third of the population had fled or been killed. That a gold proof pattern was commissioned at all speaks to the performative grandeur regimes of this type invariably demand, regardless of the country's actual economic condition.

Nguema was overthrown and executed by firing squad in August 1979, less than a year after this piece was struck.