Since the coup in Niger, the endless war of "fake news"

False rumours, hijacked videos, manipulated audios: the recent military coup in Niger has put a piece in the disinformation machine that has been raging in the Sahel for months, against a backdrop of growing divisions between West African countries.

Since July 26 and the coup in Niger that overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum, AFP has made fifteen misleading allegations on social networks, sometimes aiming to discredit, sometimes to support the soldiers who have taken power. .

Among them, amateur images of one in support of Mr. Bazoum, held on the first day of the crisis, were shared several times on X (ex-Twitter) and Facebook in the days that followed, suggesting that wrong that various marches have been organized by his supporters.

Another viral video purports to show the deposed government’s finance minister in tears, summoned by the generals to “account for the money stolen” by the Bazoum regime. Except that the sequence, which in 2021, has nothing to do with the events in Niger: we see a former Minister of Justice thanking his mentor.

The same process of decontextualization is also used by Internet users to denounce foreign interference in an increasingly divided region, while uncertainty reigns over a possible military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS) to “restore constitutional order”.

Supporting photos, some report French Rafale fighter planes in Dakar as reinforcements for ECOWAS, perceived as an ally of Westerners, others announcing the arrival of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner or the first in Niger.

After Mali (2020, 2021) and Burkina Faso (twice in 2022), Niger is the third country in the Sahel to experience a coup in three years. The latter, who have distanced themselves from the former French colonial power in favor of a rapprochement with Russia, have shown their support for Niamey.

For Ikemesit Effiong, research director of the Nigerian consultancy SBM Intelligence, the disinformation campaign targeting Niger does not seem “particularly well coordinated or centrally managed”.

Nevertheless, he underlines, the support of the new masters of the country “has greatly amplified the threat of conflict with ECOWAS, in particular with Nigeria, as well as with France (which openly supports the regional bloc, editor’s note) for mobilize online and on the ground”, in a region “where anti-imperialist and anti-Western opinions are popular and easy to sell”.

According to the experts interviewed by AFP, the means implemented resemble in part those previously employed in other countries in the region.

It is from Telegram or WhatsApp that the first assertions frequently leave, before being shared on other networks like Facebook.

In addition, today we find several actors who have already spread infox on Mali and Burkina Faso, known for their pro-Russian positions in the region, and their hostility towards Paris.

This is particularly the case of the Pan-African Group for Trade and Investment (GPCI), a communication agency directed by Harouna Douamba, close to Russian spheres, at the origin of numerous “interferences” propagated via a vast network of fake sites. of media and Facebook pages, according to the international investigative group All Eyes on Wagner.

On August 10, for example, one of these pages called INFOS DU FASO claimed that France was preparing a “plot to destabilize” Niger and was arming “terrorists”.

The GPCI, through “several suspicious sites involved in disinformation, shared information on Chad or Nigeria and on other countries in the region” concerning a possible military intervention in Niger or the resignation of President Bazoum, abounds with AFP the founder of the Casus Belli account on X (ex-Twitter), which analyzes and monitors suspicious content, particularly in Africa.

Afrique Média TV, partner of the state media Russia Today and relay of the actions of the Wagner group on the African continent, also participates in disinformation operations, according to this analyst.

The channel thus shared a video on August 9 which claimed to show President Bazoum, looking relaxed after signing his resignation, while he has been sequestered at home since July 26. These misleading images were by AFP.

For Maixent Somé, a Burkinabè financial analyst who has set up an observatory on social networks, this wave of misinformation is as much the work of local actors as of foreign influences. “There was an anti-French feeling long before the arrival of Russia”, on which his networks are only capitalizing, he told AFP.

For their part, pan-Africanist militants “have forged themselves into allies of circumstance” of Russia, in particular to convey a feeling of rejection of France, he adds. But they now have “personal agendas”, including political ambitions.

08/18/2023 10:04:23 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP