1.000 Ekuele

Equatorial Guinea's 1,000 Ekuele note was issued under the dictatorship of Francisco Macías Nguema, whose regime had by 1975 become one of the most brutal and economically destructive in African post-colonial history. The country had already shed the CFA franc zone in 1975, introducing the Ekuele as part of a broader rupture with Spanish colonial financial structures — a move that accelerated rather than stabilized the monetary collapse already underway.

Thomas De La Rue handled production, but the economic machinery behind the currency was in freefall. Nguema's government reportedly stored national reserves in his personal hut.