Why 'pan-Africanist' influencers pushed rumours of a coup

In May, Mafalda Marchioro woke up to messages from friends living overseas asking if she was safe in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast.

Social media was full of posts claiming a coup was under way. Dramatic footage of soldiers on the street flooded platforms, while AI-generated and presenter-led reports were racking up millions of views on YouTube.

"I was really worried, really concerned, I thought something had happened," the management consultant told the BBC.

But the claims shared around 19 May were false.

They are the most recent example of untrue rumours being spread about coups in West Africa, increasing tensions in a region that has seen several military takeovers in recent years.

Ivory Coast, one of the few French-speaking countries still closely aligned with the West, is due to hold presidential elections later this year.

Experts believe it could be an increasing target for this type of disinformation with narratives attacking the electoral process.

This is because Ivorian President Alassane Ouattarra, poised to seek a fourth term, is seen as pro-Western - and his critics accuse him of aligning with countries that are exploiting the continent.

Ivory Coast's Communications Minister Amadou Coulibaly told the BBC they had traced the origin of the fake information to "neighbouring countries", but did not specify further.

The rumours appear to have grown out of a rift with Burkina Faso and have been promoted by a growing wave of self-styled pan-Africanist influencers.

They reject ties with the West, often express support for Russia and generate conversations across the continent – reaching countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

The influencers also promote figures like Burkina Faso's military leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré, who seized power in a coup in 2022.

Traoré portrays himself as a pan-Africanist and has lots of genuine support from young people across the continent, who see him as a leader who is standing up to the West.

Alex Vines, the director of the Africa Programme at Chatham House think tank, says the influencers are attempting to sow doubt about existing political leadership by spreading or amplifying coup rumours, to erode public confidence in the current institutions.

They are "finding an avid market of readers who want to see more assertive African leaders, who are developmental and bring peace and prosperity", he told the BBC.

While analysts suggest the Ivory Coast rumours have similar traits to a Russian sponsored-campaign, there is no evidence of Russia's involvement.

The country has been linked to influence operations in French-speaking West African countries in the past. According to the US Department of Defense's Africa Center for Strategic Studies disinformation networks connected to the Russian Wagner Group tried to spark rumours of a coup in Niger in 2023.

There is also no evidence the Burkinabé authorities were involved in the Ivory Coast coup rumours but people based there did amplify the claims.

Relations between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast seriously soured more than a year ago, when Traoré accused his neighbour of tolerating militant groups on its territory and harbouring "destabilisers" and dissidents who were openly insulting his junta.

Then this April, his security minister blamed plotters based in Ivory Coast for planning to overthrow Traoré – an accusation which was widely amplified online.

The BBC Global Disinformation Unit analysed mentions of the fake Ivorian coup reports on TikTok, Facebook, X and YouTube – and the earliest popular post we found was on 19 May by Harouna Sawadogo, a pro-government activist in Burkina Faso who makes content for his 200,000 TikTok followers almost exclusively about Capt Traoré.

He had posted a selfie video in French and Mooré, a local language, saying soldiers of Ivory Coast should rise up to carry out a coup and encouraging people to share his post.

An hour later he published a video featuring an image of Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara superimposed over footage of rapid gunfire with the caption declaring a coup was underway - though the clip was actually from recent India-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir.

The following day, social media users outside Francophone West Africa pounced on the misinformation and pushed it out to an English-speaking audience in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, encouraging other social media users to follow suit.

When the BBC messaged Mr Sawadogo a few weeks later, via the Facebook page posting his live videos, to ask from where he had sourced his information, he provided no details but replied that he "prays to God Alassane [Ouattara] is brought down by a coup d'etat."

Another who took on the rumour, posting in English, was Turkish-born South African Mehmet Vefa Dag, who runs the Truth and Solidarity Movement – a small political organisation in South Africa.

He posted several times across different platforms celebrating what he called an "internal coup".

In fact Mr Dag, who has been criticised in the past for offensive and false comments against Jews and LGBTQ+ people, had already called for a coup in Ivory Coast on X on 11 May.

When contacted by the BBC on 3 June, when it was clear there had been no coup, he insisted it had happened.

"We are very proud of whoever did this coup to remove Ouattara. He had sold his soul to imperialists and wanted to destroy Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger," he said.

"As pan-Africanists we will never give them a chance ever again. We're going to fight for our country. This is our continent."

The most popular YouTube videos about the alleged turmoil in Ivory Coast, viewed millions of times, were shared by channels that often style themselves as dedicated to pan-Africanism or discussions about Burkina Faso's junta leader.

According to Effiong Udo, an associate professor at Nigeria's University of Uyo and president of the Pan-African Dialogue Institute, some "opportunistic influencers" are romanticising military governments under the guise of pan-Africanism – a movement to promote unity and liberation on the continent – to gain popularity and make money from their content.

But he told the BBC that this type of content has appeal with young people disillusioned with politics, adding: "I can understand their overzealousness."

Kenyan academic Karuti Kanyinga agrees that the social media content feeds into a desire for accountable leaders who can change Africa, do not misappropriate resources and try to uplift people from poverty.

"But the people trying to provide misinformation and disinformation about Traoré in Burkina Faso, or about a coup in Ivory Coast are not agents of pan-Africanism," the research professor of development studies at the University of Nairobi's Institute for Development Studies told the BBC.

There is no doubt Traoré has many admirers and for content creators he is the story of the moment – anything linked to him and his political worldview does very well online.

Kenyan YouTuber Godfrey Otieno, who produces content on trending news, said he stumbled on to this winning formula several months ago when he posted a video reporting the false claim that Capt Traoré had been shot by his best friend.

"That really trended," he told the BBC – and since then his content has almost all been about the Burkinabé leader.

He was one those who repeated the unverified information about Ivory Coast in May and his video garnered more than 200,000 views. He later apologised and said he got it wrong.

He admits that he does make money from some of his content, but adds he does not monetise all his posts and unlike some people identifying as "pan-African influencers" maintains his motivations are not purely financial.

"There are people in the space who are using misinformation and disinformation to grow their reach, and for engagement farming," he said.

There is real interest in this content and the comments under the fake coup videos were often positive, possibly reflecting an appetite for change across the continent.

But calling for the removal of Ivory Coast's government did cause genuine anxiety for those living in the crosshairs – and it all contributes to increasing tensions as the West African state gears up for the vote in October.

Additional reporting by the BBC's Nicolas Négoce