Pope Leo sets off on Tuesday for \u200bEquatorial Guinea, led by the world’s longest-serving president, on the final leg of a four nation Africa tour during which \u200cthe pontiff has issued sharp denunciations of despotism and inequality.<\/p>\n
Pope, who has drawn the ire of United States (US) President Donald Trump with his more outspoken comments, will arrive from Angola, where on Monday he lamented that many people globally were being “exploited by authoritarians and defrauded by the rich.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
His statements were the latest evidence of \u200ba forceful new speaking style he has embraced while in Africa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The first US Pope was due to arrive in Malabo, on \u200bthe island of Bioko in the Gulf of Guinea, where he will \u2060give a speech to the country’s political leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He will meet first with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in \u200bpower since 1979, three years before the Central African country’s only other papal visit, by Pope John Paul II back in 1982.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Pope’s\u00a0\u200barrival “presents a profound opportunity to affirm, clearly and convincingly, that human dignity, justice, and accountability are not optional, but essential responsibilities of governance,” Tutu Alicante, a US, based human rights lawyer and activist from Equatorial Guinea, told Reuters.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n More than 70% of the country’s population of 1.8 million identify as Catholic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Obiang, whose \u200bgovernment oversaw a now-declining oil boom that began in the 1990s, has been widely criticized as one of the most repressive \u200bleaders in the region.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He denies allegations of human rights abuses and corruption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21637,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-32626","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":"Pope Leo sets off on Tuesday for \u200bEquatorial Guinea"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32627,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32626\/revisions\/32627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}