nations. “This pidgin language, known as pichi, pichinglis or broken inglis, constitutes the
true lingua franca of Fernando Poo/Bioko (Lipski "Pidgin English")” (Lipski, 2004, p. 117).
According to Fajardo (1993), the high proportion of Spanish speakers in EG is largely
attributable to the efforts of the Spanish educational system, through which the Spanish
government imposed an exclusive use of Spanish as the colonial language from 1778 to
1810 and from 1844 to 1968. Unlike the Portuguese language in Guinea-Bissau and São
Tomé and Príncipe, Spanish did not become a creole language in EG. Lipski (2004) argued
that the most important factor of the non-creole status of Equatoguinean Spanish is that
in the African territories, “there never occurred the massive linguistic and ethnic
fragmentation that resulted from the Atlantic slave trade”, because “contact with Spain
was never broken off”, resulting in an insufficient time for any significant linguistic
changes to take place. Nowadays, more than 85% of Equatoguineans speak Spanish,
and not only is Spanish the medium of instruction but it is also a compulsory subject for
students (Gomashie, 2019).
For the Portuguese language, since 2010, it has become EG’s third official language (the
legislature amended Article 4 of the Constitution of Equatorial Guinea in a bid to become
a member of Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, CPLP), and the government
of Equatorial Guinea (EG) has made an effort to increase its usage in day-to-day
communication, though with little success. In practice, Portuguese is still rarely spoken
or used, as Cristina Abeso Mangue, the national coordinator for Lusophony at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and currently the first delegate of Equatorial Guinea to Forum Macao,
concedes, “The coordination is defined, but Portuguese still needs to be introduced into
the education system” (DN, 2018). However, this does not mean that the Portuguese
language has little relevance to the country. EG first encountered the Portuguese in
1472–1474, long before the colony was given to Spain in 1778. Interestingly, on Ano
Bom Island (Annobón), about 6,000 residents speak Fa d'ambu, a Portuguese-derived
creole similar to the dialects spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe (Agostinho, 2021).
As explained, despite being a PSC and having Portuguese as one of its official languages,
EG is still dominated by Spanish speakers, and Portuguese is seldom used, which is a
unique case among the PSCs. Considering the historical relations with Spain, Portugal,
and the British colonies in West Africa, EG has successfully implemented the strategy to
connect as many regional political and economic blocks and language communities as
possible to reach more markets not only in West Africa but also in Europe, Asia, and the
Americas. Apart from joining the OPEC (2017) as a main oil producer of Africa, the
country also managed to become a member of a number of international organizations
such as the Organization of African Unity — today's African Union (1968), the
International Monetary Fund (1969), the Non-Aligned Movement (1970), the Africa, the
Caribbean and the Pacific Group (APC Group) (1975), the Organization of Ibero-American
States (OEI) (1979), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) (1983),
the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (ZOPACAS) (1986), Organisation
Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) (1989), the Gulf of Guinea Commission (GGC)
(2001), the CPLP (2014), and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) (2019).
EG joined Forum Macao in 2022 as its tenth member (Table 3) but has yet to join the
World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, EG has requested to enter the WTO since 2007,
with a working party and the terms of reference already established in 2008, but the