The ‘ghost reporters’ writing pro-Russian propaganda in West Africa

Eight pallbearers – some wearing tracksuits emblazoned with the FIFA logo – carried a coffin on their shoulders. Alongside them, referee whistles echoed the tune of a song being sung by the funeral procession.

It was September 2020, and hundreds of people had gathered at a sports stadium in the Central African Republic (CAR) to bid farewell to Jean Claude Sendeoli.

Sendeoli was a teacher at a secondary school in the capital, Bangui, and a referee for the country’s football federation. After his death, students posted messages on the school’s Facebook page to remember their much-loved teacher while FIFA named him in its 2020 obituaries, closing the book on his journey.

But what nobody knew was that even after he was laid to rest, his identity was not.

In the years that followed, photos of Sendeoli would become part of a pro-Russian propaganda campaign – one that used his image to create a fake persona whose articles have been published in media outlets in more than a dozen African countries.

And it was the images and videos of his final farewell that helped Al Jazeera uncover the propaganda campaign and prove that a man who claimed to be a geopolitical expert did not exist at all.

Paid-for content

“Good evening, sir. My name is Aubin Koutele, I am a journalist for TogoMedia24,” read the February 2022 WhatsApp message obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit).

“I would like to know the conditions of publishing an already edited article on your website,” wrote Koutele, who edits and publishes the Togolese news website.

The answer from the Burkinabe newspaper came quickly.

“We will have a look, and if it aligns with our editorial guidelines, we will publish it,” the editor replied.

Like many media outlets around the world, revenue for publications in Burkina Faso has dwindled.

As a result, many have resorted to finding new sources of income, including publishing paid-for content. Usually, these paid articles advertise a product or service, but sometimes they are of a different nature.

This was one such case.

Koutele, the journalist who approached the Burkinabe editor, sent over the first of several articles. “Article not signed,” the editor told Koutele, referring to the missing byline.

“I’m sorry. Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada [is the writer],” Koutele replied.

Shortly after, the article was published. Koutele later sent the newspaper payment for the piece, about $80.

Stolen identity

Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada, according to his social media profiles, is a political and military analyst from CAR who now lives in Paris. He’s published at least 75 articles, mainly about the political situation in Francophone Africa.

He focuses on the role of Russia, France and the United Nations, and his articles have headlines like: “The reasons for anti-French sentiment in West Africa” and “France’s jealousy of the successes of the Russian presence in Mali”.

Analysing the articles, a clear viewpoint comes across in almost all of them – one that presents French influence in Africa as detrimental for the continent and the presence of Russian soldiers as beneficial.

But, on closer inspection, some things do not add up about Dongobada.

An analysis by the I-Unit shows that Dongobada’s first article appeared in February 2021 with no evidence of him existing before that.

He claims to be a political and military expert, yet has no links to any university, think tank or private institution, and there are no research papers or academic publications under his name.

Dongobada seems to exist only on social media – specifically Facebook and X – and as a writer for outlets across French-speaking Africa, from Senegal to Mali and Cameroon to Burkina Faso. Al Jazeera reached out to several of the outlets that published him. None the I-Unit spoke to had ever talked to Dongobada directly.

And then there are the profile pictures he uses on social media.

Dongobada doesn’t just look like Jean-Claude Sendeoli, the teacher and referee whose funeral was held in September 2020. Dongobada’s X and Facebook profiles use one of Sendeoli’s photos from 2017 (flipped right to left), indicating it was simply taken from the deceased man’s Facebook page.

“Someone, whether a state or a nonstate actor, is using the identity of someone who’s died to do their own propaganda,” said Michael Amoah, a political scientist at the London School of Economics, whose research looks at postcolonial politics and power transitions in Africa.

Disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz said she was “quite surprised they chose someone who has died instead of just using the profile of a living person or potentially using artificial intelligence” to construct the false identity.

An analysis showed that Dongobada is not the only seemingly nonexistent person to write for Francophone African media: The I-Unit identified more than 15 writers and at least 200 articles published since early 2021.

Some of the writers, but not all, had bylines in the paid-for articles Koutele submitted to outlets for publication. Most of the writers call themselves freelance journalists in their newspaper bios with some – like Dongobada – self-identifying as analysts or experts. However, for each of them, there is no employment history and, in many cases, no social media profile or other evidence to indicate they are a real person.

As with Dongobada, writers who do not appear to exist having written articles critical of France and the UN point to a concerted effort to convey a political message, experts said.

Most of the articles Al Jazeera analysed were not only critical of France’s role in its former colonies but also remarkably positive about Russia. Each of the countries where the articles appeared has seen an increased Russian presence, and some are led by military governments favourable towards Moscow.

The article biases and metadata from Koutele’s correspondence uncovered by the I-Unit point to likely Russian involvement, according to the experts Al Jazeera spoke to.

“I think a lot of states are engaged in information operations through their covert mechanisms,” Jankowicz said when presented with the I-Unit’s evidence.

“What makes Russia different is that they’re doing this by taking on personas,” added the expert, who is CEO of the American Sunlight Project, which combats online disinformation.

Niger is one of the countries that has seen an increase in support for Russia in recent years [AFP]

Francafrique falling, Russia rising?

France was once the colonial ruler of more than a dozen countries in Africa. Now, after decades of economic, military and cultural prominence, its power on the continent is waning – while a growing number of West and Central African leaders open their doors to Russia.

“France wants to maintain Francafrique, which is the political system whereby colonial France keeps its former colonies in check, particularly economically,” Amoah said. “Although these countries have gained independence, … they are still not economically independent.”

According to Russian political analyst Alexander Nadzharov, only a small fraction of Africans benefitted under this system.

“The populations of those countries are tired of the existing socioeconomic model because they don’t see it working for them,” said Nadzharov, who researches Russia’s and France’s role in Francophone Africa at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

“The key pillar of the Francafrique system is the elite networks,” he said, speaking about France’s influence in the region, where leaders, including Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara, are strong French allies. “Everyone has studied in French universities, everyone has bank accounts in France, everyone has assets in France. The perception is that the elites are bought – that the elites are too tied to the West.”

As a result, the relationship between France and the populations of many Francophone African countries has become strained. This growing resentment has recently had an effect on the internal politics of many countries in the region.

In the past five years, there were more than 12 attempted coups in West and Central Africa, and nine of them were successful. Most took place in former French colonies where rulers friendly to – and in many cases supported by – France were in charge.

New leaders have sought to decrease French influence, from Chad and Niger ordering French troops to leave to Senegal renaming monuments and rewriting textbooks.

Meanwhile, a regional vacuum is creating an opportunity for Russia to make inroads and increase its influence, such as its involvement in mining in CAR and security in Mali and Burkina Faso.

At the same time, it looks to be finessing its image through media influence campaigns like the one identified by Al Jazeera.

“Russia’s MO for a long time has been to identify fissures or grievances in society and to really tear at those fissures, to tear the fabric of society apart,” Jankowicz said.

“Russia has used false amplifiers, fake accounts before, most notably in the [2016] US election,” she explained.

“The idea is to give the guise of grassroots support to the pro-Russian viewpoint. And in this case, it’s a viewpoint that probably many people in Africa agree with in the postcolonial world.”

Two months after Togolese journalist Koutele initiated contact with the Burkinabe media outlet, he reached out to it again over WhatsApp.

“I have another article for you,” he wrote.

“The client agrees with the same price.”

For the first time, Koutele indicated he was a middleman, approaching and paying media in the region at the behest of someone else.

Other signs suggested he was also just a small cog in a much larger machine.

Some of the WhatsApp messages he sent editors showed they were forwarded from someone else. This indicated a third party was almost certainly providing Koutele with the articles and money.

By analysing the WhatsApp messages and the original Word documents containing the articles, Al Jazeera found clues as to who was behind the campaign.

Every digital file contains metadata within it – tiny scraps of information about the file itself. This data can reveal when a file was created, the language of the machine it was created on and even hints about the author.

In this case, the files revealed two noteworthy details. First, part of the metadata of each document was in Cyrillic, the alphabet used in Eastern Europe, something unusual for articles written by French-speaking journalists in Francophone Africa. Second, one of the documents had a 10-digit number in it. The first digit was a 7, which is also the country code for Russia.

A Word document shows the word ‘Title’ in both Latin and Cyrillic characters [Al Jazeera]

There have been “many bumbling mistakes” by the creators of this influence campaign that led to the uncovering of their operation, Jankowicz noted when looking at the evidence presented by Al Jazeera.

Using phone number recognition apps, the I-Unit was able to reverse search the 10-digit number. The app revealed the name of the person the phone number belonged to: Seth Boampong Wiredu. Both second names are common in Ghana.

So how did this Ghanaian name end up linked to a Russian phone number in a document that was part of an apparent propaganda campaign in French West Africa?

Although his number appearing in this document does not directly prove involvement in this campaign, Wiredu has a history of being linked to similar campaigns.

The ‘Last saved by’ column shows a string of numbers that turned out to be a Russian phone number [Al Jazeera]

Influence campaigns and the Wagner Group

Seth Wiredu moved from Ghana to Russia in 2008 to study in the city of Novgorod, 570km (355 miles) northwest of Moscow. He spent several years there and started a business as a translator. His Russian tax documents show that by June 2019, he had obtained Russian citizenship.

In 2020, Wiredu found a job working for a company known for its propaganda campaigns: the Internet Research Agency (IRA) based in St Petersburg.

The IRA gained notoriety for its involvement in the 2016 US presidential election. According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in that election, the IRA carried out “a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States”.

The company, which had links to Russian intelligence agencies, was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, then-head of a mercenary force and a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But after the 2016 election interference, US-based social media companies like Facebook and Twitter improved their systems to try to prevent future coordinated propaganda campaigns by state actors like Russia.

In 2020, Seth Boampong Wiredu denied working for the Russian Internet Research Agency. He did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera [Screengrab/CNN]

“Social media platforms are looking for ads purchased in roubles or fake accounts created by Russia, so it has had to launder its disinformation,” Jankowicz explained.

“It has had to pay middlemen and individuals to ensure that that information gets out there.”

This became clear in 2020 when CNN revealed that the IRA hired people in Nigeria and Ghana to post politically inflammatory content on Facebook and Twitter before that year’s US presidential election.

According to sources CNN spoke to at the time, it was Wiredu who hired and paid them for their work in the campaign. Wiredu denied being involved with the IRA when confronted by CNN.

In 2021, he appeared in a Russian action movie called Tourist, which tells the story of Russian military operatives in CAR. The film was funded by the Wagner Group, a private military company with close ties to the Russian government founded by Prigozhin, the man who also started the IRA.

As a private military company, Wagner became the go-to security apparatus in several African countries, most notably CAR, where its main base of operations is located. In CAR, Wagner initially came in to train the local army. This would become a blueprint for other countries like Mali and Burkina Faso, where Russia’s military and civilian presence increased after Wagner deployed its fighters. What used to be Wagner is now slowly being incorporated into the Russian Ministry of Defence and has been rebranded as Africa Corps.

Some wondered if things would change when Prigozhin died in a suspicious plane crash in 2023 after challenging Putin over his handling of the war in Ukraine. However, his death did not alter Russia’s plans for Africa, Amoah said.

“When Prigozhin passed, the first thing that happened was Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, made direct contact with the African countries where Wagner plays a key role [and said] that although Prigozhin had passed, Russia’s foreign policy remains the same.”

Wagner’s operations in Africa were mostly taken over by the Russian government after Yevgeny Prigozhin died, experts tell Al Jazeera [File: Stringer/Reuters]

The fight for influence

According to both Nadzharov and Amoah, Russia’s aims in West and Central Africa are different from what France has historically been trying to achieve.

“Russia is interested in very pragmatic cooperation that leads to money flowing into Russia,” Nadzharov said, pointing to Russia being a potential supplier of fertiliser, arms and machinery.

“Because we’re interested in making money, we can offer more … generous terms to those African nations than the French are suggesting,” the Russian analyst said.

“Russia is not trying to make client states out of these countries. Russia has no interest to do that nor actually the capacity to do that,” Nadzharov added.

Amoah said: “France wants to maintain its influence. And so they see Russia as competition. And France has made it quite clear that they would prefer African countries to deal with them rather than Russia.”

This fight for influence has led to both countries adopting their own strategies to persuade local populations of their aims.

“They both have very different tactics,” Amoah said.

“Russia will stage propaganda, and we obviously can see that this [influence campaign] is propaganda.

“With France, it’s actually done through the proper state media.”

Outlets like France24 or Radio France Internationale, which are funded by the French government, “will propagate its own gospel, that ‘we’re here to support Africa, to fight terrorism, to help support Africa with trade and economic prosperity,’” he noted.

But in the end, “they all have the same agenda really: influence, influence.”

Right to reply

In response to Al Jazeera’s questions about his involvement, Koutele said neither he nor his outlet TogoMedia24 entered into any agreement as part of an influence campaign at the behest of Russia-linked clients and that he was not aware of the existence of a pro-Russian influence campaign.

Koutele also denied acting as an intermediary as part of any influence campaign and said he was helping colleagues get published.

“As journalists, we have colleagues all over Africa with whom we collaborate. If they ask for our help, we help them and vice versa,” he told Al Jazeera.

The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said France has been working on transforming its “historic partnership” with Africa, especially in the areas of security and finance.

“France has been militarily involved in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, particularly in Mali, at the request of the states concerned and with due respect for their sovereignty.”

It added: “France has been reconfiguring its defence partnerships with the aim of moving away from the logic of military bases.”

It also said France is no longer present on the governing bodies of the Central Bank of West African States and is open to monetary reforms, given that 14 countries still use the CFA currency tying them to France’s Treasury.

Finally, it stated that French media outlets publishing internationally under the state-owned France Medias Monde are strictly free and independent.

The other parties mentioned in this article, including the Russian government, the Wagner company, Wiredu and the person posting as Dongobada on social media did not respond to Al Jazeera’s inquiries.