When 25-year-old Kabir Musa logs onto TikTok from his small apartment in Kaduna, he is not looking for news. He wants entertainment. But what he often finds is something far more political: slick videos idolising military rulers from Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali; men who seized power with guns but are now being portrayed as fearless saviors of the African continent.
“They are not corrupt. They act fast. No long grammar,” Musa says, quoting his favourite TikToker (Tripple Mark), who regularly praises Captain Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso’s 36-year-old junta leader. In his words, “democracy is too slow for Africa.”
Screenshot of triple_mark account riddled with posts of Ibrahim Troare
Across Nigeria, a subtle but dangerous shift is unfolding. A growing number of social media influencers, especially on TikTok, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), are glamorising authoritarianism, portraying strongman rule as sexy, efficient, and unburdened by the messiness of elections or the dysfunction of democratic governance. Their message resonates, especially with a generation disillusioned by decades of corruption, insecurity, and broken promises.
In 2023, DAIDAC tracked a certain TikTok user with a network of accounts and thousands of users spreading pro-authoritarian narratives with the flair of disinformation while inciting young Ghanaians and Nigerians to take up arms and push back democracy.
A year later (2024), we saw young people in Nigerian streets protesting while calling for a military takeover and waving Russian flags with a direct connection to TikTok’s authoritarian’ local influencers.
A New Breed of Digital Propagandists
These influencers don’t wear military fatigues or hold state power. Instead, they command digital armies; hundreds of thousands of followers hungry for bold ideas and revolutionary change. Their content is slick, meme-laden, and emotionally charged. Young soldiers like Traoré are stylised in heroic poses, often juxtaposed with images of African leaders cosying up to Western powers. Most of these videos leverage sophisticated AI techniques, including deepfakes (AI-generated synthetic media where a person’s likeness is swapped onto another’s body) and generative adversarial networks (GANs) capable of creating realistic but entirely fabricated scenarios.
TikTok’s visual and short-form nature has created a fertile ground for the rapid and widespread dissemination of this disinformation, a report by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) finds. The platform’s algorithmic feed, designed for maximum engagement, often prioritises emotionally charged and visually arresting content, making it susceptible to manipulation through these AI-generated videos and other forms of propaganda. Influencers adept at crafting slick, meme-laden content can quickly reach vast audiences, bypassing traditional gatekeepers of information. This is compounded by the platform’s younger demographic, who may be less equipped with the critical media literacy skills to discern manipulated content from reality. Furthermore, the lack of robust content moderation and fact-checking mechanisms tailored to the Nigerian context on TikTok allows these pro-authoritarian narratives to proliferate largely unchecked, contributing to the erosion of trust in democratic processes among a significant portion of the population.
One viral video posted by the account @africamailtv, which has over 380,000 followers, opens with dramatic music and footage of Traoré walking through farmland.. With the caption: “Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré has announced plans to create a welfare system to help low-income citizens by giving them free houses and farms…”
But the video was AI-generated, and many other similar videos on the account (as depicted below) leverage such techniques.
Digital media researcher Maxine Gloria Danso, who is based in Ghana and works at the Centre for Journalism Innovation, warns that this is not accidental. “We’re seeing a deliberate reframing of authoritarianism as modern African resistance,” she says. “These influencers are tapping into legitimate frustrations, poverty, insecurity, elite capture, and channelling them into admiration for military regimes.” This was evident when Captain Troare was cheered on in Ghana by a crowd of mostly young people when he turned up for the presidential swearing-in of recently elected Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama.
Regional Echoes and Coordinated Narratives
The rise of this content mirrors regional political shifts. Since 2021, five West African countries have experienced coups. In Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, juntas have ejected French troops, cut ties with ECOWAS, and increasingly aligned with Russia; narratives eagerly amplified by Nigerian influencers.
Many of these influencers appear to draw inspiration from pan-Africanist Telegram channels (African Stream, Africa initiative, etc.) and TikTok accounts traced to francophone West Africa, like this one, @leaders078, with over 3.4 million users. A 2024 analysis by Afrobarometer found that more than half of Africans (53% across 39 countries, including Nigeria) are willing to accept a military takeover if elected leaders “abuse power for their own ends.”
“These narratives online are negatively impacting democratic principles,” says Hamza Ibrahim, FIMI/Information Disorder analyst “They have succeeded in influencing how people perceive democracy by focusing on the gaps African democracy has, like corruption.” A single narrative that military rule is Africa’s path to sovereignty is being recycled and localised in Nigeria, which was recently captured by Mr Ibrahim in an analysis he did on how local language is used by these influencers to stress their anti-democratic narratives.
From Memes to Mindsets
While some dismiss these posts as harmless digital chatter, preliminary findings from a survey of 250 young adults who have come across such narratives online (aged 18-30) in Abuja and Kano, conducted between February and March 2025, indicate a concerning trend. While acknowledging the limitations of the sample size, the data reveals that 50.8% of respondents believe “military governments are more decisive than democratic ones”. Furthermore, 29.2% expressed openness to a non-democratic system “if it reduces corruption.”
Analysis of engagement metrics on popular pro-authoritarian TikTok accounts, such as average views per video and follower growth rate, also suggests a significant level of consumption and interest in this type of content (DAIDAC Internal Data, 2025).
For 22-year-old Mariam Adeyemi, a university student in Kano, the allure is psychological. “Every election feels like a scam,” she says. “The army at least does something. I’m not saying we need a coup, but these guys (like Traoré) are doing something right.”
Yet women like Mariam are also aware of the contradiction. “Military regimes have never treated women well,” she adds. “But when you’re desperate, you just want anything different.”
The Danger of Normalising Authoritarianism
The implications of this trend go far beyond TikTok algorithms. By repackaging military rule as revolutionary chic, these influencers risk eroding democratic norms, especially among youth who make up over 60/70% of Nigeria’s population. The “sexyfication” of strongmen is achieved through various stylistic techniques.
Influencers also employ relatable and informal language, meme formats, and emotionally charged narratives to connect with younger audiences (Amnesty International, 2024). The visual language employed in these videos is carefully curated. For instance, the @africamailtv video featuring Traoré walking through farmland utilises a warm colour palette and slow-motion shots, evoking a sense of peace and connection to the land. This contrasts sharply with the often chaotic and negative imagery associated with democratic failures presented in adjacent content. The heroic framing of Traoré, often in solitary and powerful poses, reinforces the “strongman” image, while the absence of dissenting voices or critical perspectives creates a seemingly unified and positive portrayal
“This is how democracy dies — not with tanks in the streets, but with hashtags on our screens,” warns Dr. Jeremiah. “The danger isn’t just coups. It’s that young people stop believing in ballots altogether.”
Civil society groups are beginning to respond. Organisations like the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) in Nigeria are actively developing digital literacy campaigns aimed at equipping young people with the critical thinking skills to identify and resist disinformation. Research also suggests that counter-narratives need to be equally engaging, culturally relevant, and disseminated through the same channels popular with the target audience to have a significant impact
Who Benefits?
While many influencers act independently, questions remain about coordination. A few accounts promoting strongman leaders also share content from pro-Kremlin channels and use hashtags like #AFRICARISE and #DownWithFrance, similar to the findings in this report that uncovered how Russia, “How Telegram, TikTok aided Russian disinformation that led to incarceration of Nigerian minors” during the #endthebadgovernance that ensued last August. Some researchers, like Rejoice Taddy, in her report, suspect foreign influence, while others believe it’s simply opportunistic nationalism monetised through views and engagement.
Either way, the line between influencer and ideological propagandist is blurring.
The Need for Democratic Resilience
The glamorisation of strongmen reveals a vacuum of trust in Nigeria’s democratic institutions; one that slick videos and populist rhetoric are all too ready to fill.
“We need to start propagating the good side of democracy,” says Mr Ibrahim. “We need a democracy that performs, one that gives young people real reasons to believe in the ballot box.”
“Until then, the clicks will keep coming, the memes will keep spreading, and the strongmen, no matter how distant, will continue to loom large in Nigeria’s digital imagination. The media needs to support and bring the good side of democracy and remind the people of the evil of military rule.”
