Kémi Séba (French-language version ofEgyptian for "black star"),[1] bornStellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi (9 December 1981), is aPan-Africanist political leader, activist, writer andgeopolitical journalist, known for his opposition toFrançafrique and imperialism in the 21st century.[2] Since August 2024 he serves as advisor toAbdourahamane Tchiani, the leader of the incumbentmilitary junta in Niger.
He initially gained prominence as the leader of theblack power,[3]afrocentric,Blackantisemitic group Ka tribe, which was dissolved by the French government in 2006.[4] He was then arrested and sentenced several times on related charges and continued antisemitic comments, being released from prison in 2008. After this, he converted toIslam and took on leadership positions in the anti-Zionist MDI and the US-basedNew Black Panther Party.[5][6]
In 2011 he moved toSenegal, and from 2013 onwards he became ageopolitical analyst on several West African televisions[7] and speaker onPan-Africanism in African universities.[2] In 2015 he founded the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes and became a prominent figure in the opposition to the economic influence of France in African countries, seen as aneocolonial phenomenon.[8] He initiated the demonstrations against theCFA franc which took place in January 2017 in several French-speaking African countries.[9][10][11] Since August 2024 he serves as advisor toAbdourahamane Tchiani, the leader of the incumbentmilitary junta in Niger.[8]
Although he is considered highly controversial in the western hemisphere (he has been repeatedly denounced by the Frenchgovernment forracial hatred,antisemitism and ties toIran and pro-Russian networkWagner Group formerly headed byYevgeny Prigozhin[12][13] ), he is inAfrica and in theCaribbean a popular and a very important figure in modernPan-Africanism and opposition toneocolonialism in Africa.[14]
Capo Chichi was born inStrasbourg to immigrant parents fromBenin.[1][note 1] He joined the US-basedNation of Islam (NOI) as an eighteen-year-old, and later formulated his own ideology while visitingEgypt in his twenties.[15] As a result of this process, he took thenom de guerre Kémi Séba and became the spokesperson of theParti Kémite (Kemite Party), which was founded in 2002 and inspired byKhalid Abdul Muhammad.[16][17]
Kemi Seba is known for having an atypical educational background.[18]
Kemi Seba was in high school, a student in the science section, before starting to skip classes, and to hang around the streets of the suburbs of Paris, in the Afro-ghettos, to the great displeasure of his parents. He will finally resume evening classes at the Faculty of Law of the University ofParis X Nanterre, from 2000 to 2002, obtaining his diploma in capacity in law , with honors, and becoming top of his class, being 1st out of 200 students in the first year. He will then leave the university to devote himself strictly to his ideological training through political activism. It was not until 2011, that he will resume university studies, this time in political philosophy and research methodology, following from 2011 to 2015 an accelerated training in philosophy under the direction of the renowned Gabonese philosopher, Grégoire Biyogo, at the ICAD ( Cheik Anta Diop Institute) of Libreville.At the end of this process, concluded once again with distinction,Kemi Seba was made researcher in philosophy within the same institute.[18]
In April 2025, Kemi Seba was awarded an honorary doctorate in political science by the Congolese University Bel Campus, for his ideological impact on Pan-Africanism in the 21st century, in Africa and the Caribbean.[18]
In December 2004, Capo Chichi founded the Parisian political groupTribu Ka, which promotes black identity and has been accused of racism against Jews.[19][4] The group said it followed the ideology of the American NOI leader,Louis Farrakhan.[20][21] They have also been described as proponents of a mix ofantisemiticKemetism andGuénonianIslam.[22] The group's name is an abbreviation for 'TheAtenian Tribe of Kemet'.[17]
In a May 2006 demonstration, twenty or moreTribu Ka members marched along theRue des Rosiers (in theMarais, a Jewish neighborhood) shouting antisemitic slogans and threatening pedestrians.[20][21][23] Interior MinisterNicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to Justice MinisterPascal Clément sayingTribu Ka could be indicted for racist incitement.SOS Racisme and theUnion des étudiants juifs de France also called forTribu Ka to be banned. Clément opened an investigation.[19] The Ministry of Interior dissolvedTribu Ka on 26 July 2006, but it reformed inSarcelles under the nameGénération Kémi Séba.[19][4][24] During the trial of Youssouf Fofana, the leader of the ethnic gangLes Barbares thatmurdered Ilan Halimi, Capo Chichi had sent an intimidating e-mail message to various Jewish associations.[17]
Capo Chichi was arrested in September 2006 for making allegedly antisemitic posts on his website, and again in February 2007 after he called a public official "Zionist scum." After the initial court hearing in 2006, supporters chanted, "The judge is a Zionist, the client is a Zionist, the decision will be Zionist." In February 2007, a French court near Paris sentenced Capo Chichi, the self-described "militant defender of the dignity of Black people " to five months imprisonment for criminal contempt of the law.[24][25] In April 2008, a Parisian court verdict determinedGénération Kémi Séba was the reconstitution of the dissolved groupTribu Ka, and sentenced Capo Chichi to a one-year prison sentence with suspension.[5]
In June 2009,Brice Hortefeux, Minister of the Interior, ordered the dissolution of the groupJeunesse Kémi Séba, founded to replaceGénération Kémi Séba.[26][27]
After his release from prison in July 2008, Capo Chichi announced that he had converted toIslam.[28] In March 2008, he became the secretary general ofMouvement des damnés de l'impérialisme (MDI, "Movement of Those Damned By Imperialism"). MDI retains close ties with the Shia paramilitary Lebanese-based groupHezbollah in their anti-Zionist campaigns.[29] In June 2009, MDI announced thatHolocaust denierSerge Thion had joined the movement.[30] Inside the MDI, neo-nazi bloggerBoris Le Lay was "in charge of external relations for the Europe zone".[31]
In April 2010,Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the US-basedNew Black Panther Party (NBPP), appointed Capo Chichi the party's representative in France and gave him thenom de guerre Kemiour AarimShabazz.[6] In July 2010, Capo Chichi left his position as the president of MDI but continued as the head of the francophone branch of NBPP.[32]
In 2011, he left the NBPP and moved toSenegal, where he continued his political activism and became a lecturer in African universities and, from 2013, a political columnist in various African television channels. This earned him a certain popularity among the French-speaking African youth, who considered him as a defender of African sovereignty.
Originally close to theNation of Islam, he eventually joined Voodoo in 2014, which he links to the work of the metaphysicianRené Guénon about theperennialism as he explains in his latest bookFree Africa or death.
He was the initiator of the demonstrations against the CFA franc who took in several French-speaking African countries.[9]In January 2018 , he was elected as 2017 African Personality of the Year byAfricanews,[33] for his fight against French neocolonialism and theCFA Franc in Africa.
In December 2019, while accusing France of being partly responsible for terrorism in theSahel, Kémi Séba placed himself at the disposal of the regional armies, to fight against the jihadists. He therefore proposed to the presidents of theG5 Sahel the creation of a group of "Pan-African civilian volunteers".
On 23 February 2020, Séba returned to Senegal to attend the appeal for his trial for having burned a CFA franc note. He was arrested at Blaise-Diagne airport, detained for 30 hours and then deported to Belgium. The holding of the trial was then postponed.
In October 2020, Kémi Séba went toCôte d'Ivoire to request a postponement ofthe 2020 presidential election, following a third term ofAlassane Ouattara.
In October 2021, three years after being turned away at Conakry airport, Kemi Seba was allowed to enter Guinean territory from where he metMamady Doumbouya.
In February 2024, the French authorities initiated a procedure for loss of French nationality against Kemi Seba, Kemi Seba also holds Beninese nationality. French authorities accused Kemi Seba of spreading anti-French sentiment across West Africa.[34]
On July 9, 2024, By virtue of a decree published in the Official French Journal, Kemi Seba was stripped of his French nationality. Kémi Seba had earlier published a video online in which he burned a document that he claimed was his French passport.[35]
In August 2024, he announced via X that he had been granted a diplomatic passport by Nigerien authorities. He posted a picture of the purported diplomatic passport bio data page. His claims were confirmed by the French secret service during his last arrest in Paris in October 2024.
In January 2025, Séba announced that he would run forPresident of Benin in the2026 Beninese presidential election after denouncing the incumbent presidentPatrice Talon.[36]
On April 15, 2025, Kemi Seba was awarded the rank of Doctor Honoris Causa in political science by Bel Campus University in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa).[37]
On March 31, 2025, Kemi Seba was arrested as he was preparing to hold a press conference.[38] On May 3, 2025, he hosted a conference dedicated to denouncing the CFA franc and challenging the agreements inherited from colonization in Central Africa.[39]
In June 2025, Kemi Seba is organizing a tour in Gabon against the CFA Franc, and cooperation agreements in Africa and France.[40]
In March 2015, Kémi Séba was received byMahmoud Ahmadinejad to talk about the need to collaborate between countries of theThird World confronted with Western imperialism.[41]
In December 2017, he was invited to Moscow by the Russian nationalist intellectualAleksandr Dugin to talk about the need to create a geopolitical alliance between thePan-Africanist andEurasian movements to join forces against hegemony of the West, and consolidate the political project of a multipolar world.[42]
In March 2022, he was invited by the Executive Secretary of the Russia-Africa Forum: What's Next? OnMGIMO base Igor Tkachenko gave a lecture on the future of Africa in the world economic system, supporting the position of PresidentVladimir Putin on theRussian invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, he was received by the Chairman of the Transitional Government of Mali.
On October 24–26, 2022, he arrived in Moscow again upon the invitation of Igor Tkachenko to participate in the Second Youth Forum "Russia-Africa: what's next?" On the basis of MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. On the fields of which Kemi Ceba delivered his sensational "Moscow" speech and was received by representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and other authorities.
On March 12, 2023, a televised intervention on the French Parliamentarian channel was cancelled due to accusations him being an asset for Russian propaganda.[43]
Séba has been financially supported by Russian oligarch and mercenary leaderYevgeny Prigozhin.[44][45][46]
On July 9, 2024, Séba was stripped of his French nationality.[47]
In May 2025, Kemi Seba declined all offers of political alliances with lawyer Robert Bourgi.[48]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
