The Hausa language accounts for millions of speakers across the West African subregion, being spoken in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroun, and Ghana, among others, and with a growing number of users in the online space, the harvest looks attractive for the Kremlin’s narrative pushers. On social media platforms and blogs, hooks spread pick their prey through a number of ways – from longer, comparative and distorted analyses of Russia to West by self-appointed authoritative voices, to commodified YouTube channels’ promoting commentary on Russia and Putin, to Tiktokers content amplifiers for pay, to Facebook’s luring captions and inundating images, Russian narratives in West Africa try to situate and position themselves for a deal to penetrate the Hausa speaking population. A number of platforms and profiles have been deliberate in pushing narratives to their huge audience in Hausa. One thing the influencers share in common is their consistent emphasis on tagging the Western world and African relations as ‘parasitic’.
Damagaram Post is a Nigerien online newspaper that publishes content in Hausa and has an audience in Niger Republic and Nigeria with 206k likes and 303k followers treat pro-Russia and Putin narratives with sensation and hype justifying them with Pan-Africanism, a logic being used to appeal for empathy in their attempt to influence their audience towards selling the Russian narratives. Presenting their news or commentary in a Pan-Africanist format, they portray Putin as a caring man towards the continent by revisiting incidents such as the death of Gaddafi and framing Putin as holding NATO accountable for the killing.
It was observed that Damagaram Post has undergone name change two times after its creation a decade ago. Being managed in Niger Republic, it publishes content mostly in Hausa language. As a pattern of pushing Russian narratives, the paper adopts analytical, provocation and sensation decorated with bias, events distortion and disinformation to shape and promote the Kremlin’s narratives.
On its subsidiary YouTube channel, created months ago and with over 7k followers, the paper employs the use of false commentary in the Hausa language to paint Putin well before their gullible audience, who, from their comments and reactions, find the commentary interesting. As observed, the channel waits for some global event to happen to leverage from and use as its prey, a disinformation tactic that sells its subject to the audience as a powerful and global warrior. Following this pattern, the channel took advantage of the Global IT Outage due to Crowdstrike Update, as reported by BBC in July 2024, to mislead their audience in Hausa that Putin shut the telecom network in the U.S., France and other western nations. The channel captioned their content heading in a warrior-promoting manner, “Putin shut telecom network for U.S., France and other nations, the world has recorded a mind-blowing action today.”
The platform was noticed to be giving preferential treatment to people with Russian sentiment, echoing their views, engagements and travels to Russia, a tactic that may be connected with the narrative pushing. A big beneficiary of this is Mansour Elh Amani, a young Nigerian politician and President of the Patriotic Front party FPJD IHSANI. Announcing the appointment of Mr Amani as Ambassador of the World Youth Conference, 2024 in Russia was one of such amplification.
Mr. Amani, a young politician and traditional title holder, has recently visited Russian cities such as Kazan, Sochi, Moscow, and St. Petersburg and attended conferences. While in Kazan, Amani published: ‘The city of Kazan today symbolizes the end of the world under Western powers. The 16th BRICS+ summit will highlight the alternative to a multipolar world.’
He is never indirect about his hard views about the Western world and support for Russian narratives. In October 2024, he published this in French (translated into English):
“Our Western colleagues, and especially the United States, are not only arbitrary setting standards for other countries to comply, but they are also teaching who should apply them and how to behave.”
All this is done and said in openly rude manner, it is the same manifestation of colonial thinking. We hear “you have to”, “you are obliged to”, “we are seriously warning you” all the time!!!
But who the hell are you? What right can you warn anybody?
Time to get rid of this colonial mentality, I’m just going to say wipe your eyes this era is long gone and will never come back.
Vladimir Poutine
Valdai Discussion Club
Sochi October 5, 2023.
A self-appointed commentator and CEO of Hausa international television station based in Cameroon, Abdollahi Sadou spreads Russian narratives through a 30 minutes commentary in Hausa language, on Hausa 7, where he analyzes Prigozhin and Putin’s power and willingness to provide security in the Sahel. On the image on the right (below), he asked some questions in Hausa which promote anti-West narratives.
Johnson Emmanuel Chukwuka is a Nigerian politician and was Vice President under the Action Alliance party in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. He was part of the ‘All Russia Youths Conference’ SHUM forum held in Kiliningrad, Russia in November 2024. On his experience about the forum, Johnson said: ‘Russia is one of the most wonderful places on earth, like anytime you come you feel the atmosphere, the rich history of Russia, anytime you walk on the street you see the reflections, in every aspect I feel Russian hospitality, you don’t get lost in Russia, anytime you have any need for any assistance you see Russians coming to your aide, and they do this thing out of pure heart, it’s not like they are being imposed or they are being hypocritical about it, it’s something that they win’.
Engaging the Nigerian public on the Russian agenda on local television, Johnson Chukwuka tweeted about speaking on ‘Russia-Africa Relations: Impacts of Africa Ministers Meeting’ on his X handle
SHUM, the All-Russian Youth Education Forum, is a yearly event that hosts media practitioners, politicians and young people from Africa and other parts of the world, and it’s being organised by Rosmolodezh, the Russian Federal Agency for Youth Affairs under the leadership of Grigory Gurov.
Ayo Soumaila Azenwo, President of the African Initiative, a Burkina Faso national, is famous for organising in-person training sessions and community outreaches to promote Russian propaganda. One of his recent in-person activities was a visit to The Municipal Secondary School of Nagrin where he spoke about cultural heritage between Russia and Burkina Faso, presenting books with pictures of Putin and Ibrahim Troare (Dec. 16). In furtherance of his propaganda targeting school communities, he addressed students of Saaba Lyceum about Russia and its relations with Burkina Faso and shared books and ball to the students.
Amarula Obiligbo, author of African Fashion Week AFWM 2024, held in Moscow article on African Initiative’s website promoting anti-western sentiment, retweets videos of African Initiative published by Eye Witness on X in which she was seen addressing what was echoed ‘the West’s plot against the African countries, ‘use of IMF and World Bank as first alternative or backing revolt and civil unrest against African countries who attempt to resist dependency’ by the west, western plot against African countries in Russian language
Yusuf Adam Abdullah is a young Chadian who serves as Secretary General of the Russian House in Chad. He has been visiting Russia since 2015 and has obtained his bachelor’s degree in Saratov and his master’s degree in Biotechnology in Moscow. In an interview with African Initiative, Yusuf states the goal of the Russian House:
“We created the “Russian House” to promote and support the Russian language, Russian culture and traditions, first of all in Chad, and then in Africa as a whole.”
“We believe that Russia has done a lot for us. It will continue to do a lot for Africa and the world in the future. That is why we also want to do something useful for Russia. We hold cultural events and organise Defender of the Fatherland Day, Victory Day on May 9 and other holidays. We also provide legal assistance and translate documents.”
Ousmane Gigma, known as Manus, is a Burkina Faso artist and one of the African bloggers and journalists who participated at Russian events in Moscow. He took part in the “III International Honest View Award for Foreign Journalists and Bloggers awarded in Moscow” and took second place. He uses graffiti and painting to promote Russian narratives. Mr. Gigma told African Initiative:
“Before coming, I had a rough idea of Moscow: that it is a very beautiful city, that Russians are very hardworking and disciplined. When I came here, I was convinced that this is so. It is a beautiful city, the people are very hospitable, they know how to accept foreigners, which gives me great pleasure. I hope that I will have more than one opportunity to visit Russia and take part in other events.”
“Russia is certainly a real partner to whom we have turned.”
Photo credit: Ousmane Gigma
Justin Tagouh, head of the Cameroonian edition of Afrique Media, a pro-Russian TV outlet, was spotted having a handshake with Yevgeny Prigozhin at the Russia-Africa Summit. African journalists at the Summit – Ivy Priscilla Setordjie, Robert Dissa and Dr. Kojo Raymond Agbabi differently shared their experiences with African Initiative:
Ivy Priscilla Setordjie, a journalist from Ghana, proposed a collaboration between AI and her media firm, Joy FM, a member of the Multimedia Group.
“It will blow the minds of Africans when they learn about Russia. They will learn what the real Russia is. We must let Africans understand how beautiful Russia is, and, most importantly, we must let Africans understand how safe it is to live in Russia.”
Robert Dissa, a journalist from Mali, advocated for a “Russian Language Day” in Bamako to advance cultural exchange.
Dr Kojo Raymond Agbabi is a prominent Ghanaian blogger and Chief Scientist at the state pharmaceutical laboratory.
“I think that we, as ambassadors, will return to our country and spread this feeling of kindness that Russia has given us”.
A Nigerian politician who also participated at the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Adamu Garba, former Nigerian Presidential aspirant, told RT, “We understood the strangulation, colonisation and problems that we face over a century ago from the Western dominance of our economy, our lifestyle, of our politics and our culture, and now we have a partner that is saying we want you to live the way you are, act the way you are, trade based on your currency, based on your culture, based on your religion, based on your tradition, how do you expect a proper African to go to West when you have his kind of offer?”
“We have the commitment of Russia towards Africa, especially with the grain deal, we know the food crisis is happening all over Africa, and we know how Russia decided to come to the aid of Africans when the financial strangulation that makes Africans much poorer is coming from the West, so with all those of kinds of things we know great partnership is coming let’s just start acting.”
According to Agenstvo Telegram channel (a Russian media outlet), Rossotrudnichestvo allocated nearly US$937,000 to organize competition and training targeting 100 journalists in Moscow in 2023 and 2024.
Rossotrudnichestvo’s activities include ‘maintaining Russian presence in the world through cultural exchanges, promotion of the Russian language abroad, as well as youth exchanges and programmes.’ In this regard, the head of Rossotrudnichestvo, Yevgeny Primakov, told African Initiative that “Rossotrudnichestvo is currently considering a total of 20 applications to create Russian houses around the world. Additional organisations will be opened in countries where houses already exist. One Russian house for an entire country is not enough, given that there is a great demand for them in the countries of the African continent.”
“Rossotrudnichestvo has already concluded agreements on opening new institutions with Sudan and Angola, and negotiations are underway with Ethiopia. The agency also plans to open Russian houses in Sierra Leone and Algeria. Another Russian house will appear in the Central African Republic, where a similar organization already operates.”
Russian narratives pushing in the Sahel don’t rely on a single approach; they leverage and apply different strategies to cultivate acceptance and goodwill. Beyond the sponsored trips to Russian cities periodically for journalists and politicians from the region, beneficiaries and alumni of the Kremlin’s scholarship and conferences now serve as pillars for the establishment of Russian Houses in many African countries to further drive the campaign. It was found that the Russian narrative pushers in the Sahel deploy a mix of anti-West sentiment wrapped in what is portrayed as Pan-Africanism and disinformation to champion the Kremlin’s propaganda.
