Chad’s junta leader Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno is hoping to sweep May 6 elections and extend the more than three-decade rule of his family over the central African country.Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo holds the longevity record with nearly 45 years in power in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.Cameroon has lived through more than 41 years of largely unchallenged and hardline rule under President Paul Biya.In Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, officially aged 80, has been in power for a combined 40 years.In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, 79, has led his country for 38 years, since January 1986. He was re-elected in January 2021 for a sixth term after a contested campaign.Eswatini, the former Swaziland and Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy, has been ruled by 56-year-old King Mswati III for 38 years.Isaias Afwerki, 78, has ruled the Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea with an iron fist since independence in May 1993.
Known as the North Korea of Africa, the country which has one of the world’s worst rights records, imposes indefinite military conscription that had led many young Eritrean men to flee abroad.
In 2022, the UN counted 501,677 refugees and 76,071 Eritrean asylum-seekers around the world, equivalent to around half the population of Eritrea’s capital Asmara.
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