Russia’s PMC Wagner/GRU funding, boosting Duginist black supremacist Kemi Seba
Dugin's "Pharaoh". How an African radical became a saboteur of the Kremlin
Escape through Limpopo, money from PMC "Wagner" and lessons of Alexander Dugin
South Africa accuses Russia of preparing a blogger, politician, writer and ideologist of "black radicalism" known in Africa and Europe to organize terrorist attacks in the EU, Kemi Cebu, who is wanted by the authorities of the West African state of Benin, in particular, for involvement in the coup attempt last winter. According to the South African investigation, Seba, recently detained while trying to escape to Zimbabwe, was trained by Russian military instructors and is "extremely dangerous". What is known about this case, and what are Seba's connections with Moscow?
Criminal cases in South Africa and Benin
Kemi Seba, known for his sharp anti-Western position, extremism, calls for violence and close ties with Russia, has been in the field of view of international law enforcement agencies for more than a decade. But they were especially interested in them after the events in Benin, where an attempted military coup failed at the end of 2025.
One of Kemi Seba's photos from his Instagram:
Since he openly supported the rebels, the Beninese authorities put him on the international wanted list on charges of terrorism and financial fraud. Earlier, the U.S. State Department had already pointed out that Seba was used by the Russian PMC "Wagner" to promote Kremlin interests on the African continent.
Read about the attempted military coup in Benin here:
And here it is again. Another attempt at a military coup in Africa
The interchange occurred in the spring of 2026 in the Republic of South Africa, when Seba tried to illegally cross the Limpopo River to neighboring Zimbabwe. He was detained in Pretoria along with his 18-year-old son Honsu Seba Capo Shishi and a local accomplice, Francois van der Merve, who seized a large amount of cash. According to South African prosecutors, these funds, allegedly transferred through cryptocurrency, came from the Russian side specifically to organize the activist's escape.
According to the materials of the South African investigation, Zimbabwe was supposed to become only a transit point. From South Africa, Seba planned to fly to European countries to commit sabotage and terrorist acts. The prosecution documents, as Bloomberg notes, for example, emphasize that Seba has undergone combat training with Russian instructors and poses a serious international threat.
Kemi Seba is visiting communist Cuba, photo from his Instagram:
Kemi Seba himself denies his guilt and ties to Moscow, while the South African court postponed consideration of his extradition to Benin until the fall of 2026 for a detailed investigation.
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The path of a "fighter with Western oppression"
"Kemi Seba" is a nickname taken by a man named Stellio Gil Robert Capo Shishi, born in 1981 in a family of immigrants from Benin, to himself. In the now dead language of ancient Egypt, it means "Black Star".
Throughout his conscious life, he was an active participant in various radical political organizations close in ideology to movements such as "Nation of Islam" or "Black Panthers". Later, he even created his own ideology based on black racism, Pan-Africanism and Kemetism (a modern reconstructed polytheistic ancient Egyptian religion, claiming that ancient Egyptian civilization was exclusively black).
He calls himself (as well as his supporters from the Tribu KA movement he founded, banned in France back in 2006 for inciting racial hatred) "the central figure of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century, and the "icon of black radicalism".
Kemi Seba frankly says that he stands for a global ban on mixed marriages, for "racial division" on a global scale and for demanding "lifetime compensation from whites to all Africans during the era of slavery". He recognizes the similarity of his own views with the programs of different ultra-right organizations of white suprematists. Seba proclaimed himself a "pharaoh" and spiritual leader of the Tribu KA movement.
Almost immediately, the key dogma of Tribu Ka became, among other things, aggressive judophobia. On their website and at street events, members of the group spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, up to accusations of creating the AIDS virus by Zionists".
The culmination of the group's activities was the march on May 28, 2006. About 20-30 Tribu Ka activists led by Seba broke into the historic Jewish quarter of Paris (Mare) on Rue de Rosier. Shouting anti-Semitic slogans, they threatened passers-by and tried to provoke mass clashes. The attack caused a harsh reaction from the authorities. Tribu Ka was officially dissolved, later the court closed their Internet resource. However, Kemi Seba ignored the ban and tried to recreate the structure under the sign Génération Kémi Séba. For this, in 2007-2008, he received several prison sentences in France.
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Seba was born and raised in France, so he initially had not only a Beninese, but also a French passport. However, in July 2024, the French government officially deprived him of citizenship for systematic anti-French activities and "promotion of the interests of other states" - which primarily Russia was meant. In response to this, he publicly burned his French passport.
Then, in August 2024, the military junta of Niger, which came to power as a result of the coup and establishing close ties with the Kremlin, issued Kemi Sebe's Niger's diplomatic passport and appointed him as a special adviser to the country's ruler, General Abdurahaman (Omar) Chiani. Thus, legally, it also has the diplomatic status of this state. However, until recently, Sebe preferred to hide in South Africa.
Photo of Kemi Seba from his Instagram:
After the ban on Tribu Ka and the release of prison, Seba accepted Islam, and then finally shifted the focus to the fight against Western and especially French influence directly on the African continent - just in the years when Russia began to be particularly active there.
African friend of Moscow
Kemi Seba first visited Moscow in December 2017. He was invited there by the Russian propagandist and philosopher Alexander Dugin to negotiate "the need to create a geopolitical alliance between pan-African and Eurasian movements in order to combat the hegemony of the West". Their many hours of meetings in Moscow were recorded, at which Dugin helped himself adapt his pan-African ideas to the Russian concept of the "multipolar world".
Kemi Seba delivers an "anti-Western and anti-colonialist" speech on the propaganda Radio Sputnik in Moscow, which is part of the Sputnik agency and is part of the MIA "Russia Today" (in March 2022, the YouTube channel of this media was blocked due to concealment and distortion of information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine):
In March 2022, Kemi Seba delivered a speech at MGIMO about the future of Africa, in which he directly supported the views of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and his position in the war. In the same year, in September, Seba flew to Moscow again, was received by representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and other authorities and again lectured at MGIMO within the framework of the so-called "Second Youth Forum "Russia-Africa: What's Next?".
In the spring of 2023, he spoke in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, at an "anti-Western and anti-imperialist" conference, which was opened by the head of the LDPR faction and chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky.
But all this was a cover for much more dangerous and serious activities. The cooperation of Kemi Seba with the structures of the founder of PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin in Africa, which began in the late 2010s, was deeply conspiratorial and systematic. It is documented in detail in the leaked internal reports of "Wagner" political technologists, investigations of journalists (in particular, The Africa Report) and materials of the special services of France, South Africa, the United States and other countries.
From 2018 to 2020, Kemi Seba regularly received large sums from Prigozhin structures. According to the leaks, the total amount of funding for his activities was at least 700 thousand dollars. Funding went through a network of Russian NGOs and think tanks controlled by Prigozhin. The key organization was AFRIC ("Association for Free Research and International Cooperation" created by the Kremlin.
The money was allocated in cash during Seba's visits to Russia, as well as through front persons for the operating expenses of another of his organization - "Urgences Panafricanistes". These funds were used to pay for his international trips, office rent and protests.
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The main task of Kemi Seba within the framework of the contract with the PMC "Wagner" was to incite anti-French and anti-Western sentiments in the Sahel countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, etc.). Prigozhin's political technologists coordinated with them the schedule and locations of rallies against the French military presence and the use of a common currency by these countries - the CFA franc.
The leaked documents of PMC "Wagner" contain detailed reports of people who supervised Seba's actions, estimated the number of people involved and the media coverage of his speeches in social networks. One of the main curators of Seba on the spot was Maxim Shugaley, a former key sociologist and PR man of Prigozhin in Africa.
Prigozhin's "troll factory" ("Internet Research Agency") provided Kemi Sebya with powerful digital support. The U.S. special services recorded that the bot farms of PMC "Wagner" massively distributed, reposted and artificially put the blogger's videos and publications into trends, creating the appearance of his enormous popularity on the continent. In addition, Cebu was promoted through Russian-controlled French-speaking resources in Africa, such as Media Afrique TV.
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After the rebellion and death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, all the infrastructure built by him in Africa, including contacts with local influencers, came under the direct control of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the GRU within the framework of the created "African Corps".
The accusations brought against South Africa in August 2026 indicate that Kemi Seba continued to receive hidden funding (including cryptocurrency transfers) and undergo subversive training already from Russian military instructors who replaced the mercenaries of the Wagner PMC on the African continent.