According to stories circulating here, fears of a coup had brought President Teodoro Obiang Nguema rushing back to the capital Malabo from his customary residence.
"We wish categorically to deny this rumour, which is unfounded," said Miguel Oyono Ndong Mifumu, the president's special foreign policy adviser: "The situation in the country is completely normal and no-one has been arrested as part of any coup attempt," he said, responding to rumours that a supposed coup had been crushed by security forces.
Obiang Nguema, who had recently visited the capital on Bioko Island, returned for no apparent reason last Saturday along with several family members.
Civilian and military sources here said his sudden reappearance was due to the coup rumours.
But the presidential aide insisted the head of state was on routine business: "The president returned to Malabo to chair an African ministerial session, that's all," he said: "All else is completely false and without basis".
Oyono said he was scandalised by the stories.
The president and several members of his government had spent most of the last five months in the second city Bata on the west African mainland.
According to persistent rumors in the capital over the past few days security forces had crushed a coup attempt by the military.
Earlier, a journalist had reported that soldiers in Malabo were ordered confined to barracks with security stepped up at strategic locations including the state radio station.
Police in Malabo said two west African nationals were being questioned by security forces, but did not elaborate.
Obiang seized power in the former Spanish colony in 1979 and was returned to office in 2002 in an election widely condemned as rigged, amid widespread reports of arbitrary arrests and detention and torture of political opponents.
Authorities foiled another attempted coup that year.
Equatorial Guinea is ranked third among African oil producers behind Nigeria and Angola, with several US oil companies operating in the country including world leader ExxonMobil.
The US in mid-October reopened its embassy in Malabo after an eight-year hiatus. – Sapa-AFP.
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