Pan-Africanist influencer Kemi Seba was arrested in South Africafocused by an arrest warrant for Benignthe place he’s being prosecuted for “apology of crimes in opposition to state safety and incitement to rebel”. He’s notably accused of getting supported the attempted coup d’état against Beninese President Patrice Talonlastly defeated with the assist of the Nigerian and French allies.
He was arrested with certainly one of his sons, with “the intention of constant his journey in the direction of Europe” from Zimbabwein keeping with native police. They had been remanded in custody pending their look on April 20 and are topic to extradition proceedings. However who’s Kemi Seba, born in Strasbourg?
Supporter of Kemitism
Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi, his actual identify, is 44 years previous. Of Franco-Beninese origin, he has 1.5 million subscribers on social networks and is the top of an NGO, “Pan-Africanist Emergencies”. Born in Alsace, he spent a part of his youth in Ile-de-France after which found the “Nation of Islam” motion throughout a visit to Los Angeles. He joined its French department for a time earlier than transferring in the direction of Kemitism, a faith centered on the traditional Egyptian gods.
He notably participated within the founding of the Kemite Get together in 2002, then based his personal motion, the Ka Tribe, in 2004 following a cut up. It was presently that he took the nickname “Kemi Seba”, “black star” in historic Egyptian. “We have to be allowed to arrange ourselves. We’re not kids anymore. We’re fed up with white folks and Arabs who need to information our steps. We’re in opposition to integration,” he declared to Figaro in 2007. Accused specifically of anti-Semitism, this small group was dissolved in 2006 on the proposal of the Minister of the Inside on the time, Nicolas Sarkozy. Two years later, Kemi Seba will seem in courtroom for making an attempt to reconstitute this group below the identify “Era Kemi Séba”.
Convicted of violence in conferences, contesting crimes in opposition to humanity and even inciting racial hatred, he was for a time near Dieudonné and Alain Soral and defended a rapprochement with Jean-Marie Le Pen, studies International Mail in 2017.
Near Russia and navy regimes
Critic of the “neocolonialism” of Western powers in Africa, Kemi Seba has, all through his profession, organized or participated in a number of hostile demonstrations to the CFA franc in Africa. He was often arrested, expelled or returned, notably from Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea, supporting navy regimes ensuing from coups d’état within the Sahel. There Nigerien junta notably granted him a diplomatic passport.
He’s additionally close to Russiathe place he went for conferences, in addition to in Iran. In October 2024, the influencer was positioned in police custody in France, questioned on suspicion of “sustaining intelligence with a international energy (…) more likely to hurt the basic pursuits of the Nation”. A yr earlier, a number of media retailers had printed the Wagner Leaksensuing from a hacking of inner paperwork of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which indicated that its founder Evgeny Prigogine had financed and guided sure actions of Kemi Seba in Africa between 2018 and 2019. He was stripped of his French nationality the identical yr.
“Their Manhunt fits me so effectively. Thanks to the white settler and his black vassal for as soon as once more collaborating, by formally chasing me, within the writing of our frequent future,” he wrote in February 2026 on his X account, adopted by greater than 314,000 folks, the place he defines himself as an “African Revolutionary within the twenty first century.” In January 2025, he introduced his intention to run for president in Benin.
