Radical Pan-African activist Kemi Seba stripped of French nationality – Libération

Loss of nationality, the controversyfileControversial activist for the black cause and close to Dieudonné, he took many virulent anti-Western positions and had been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred.

He became known for his activism once morest neocolonialism, his violent anti-Western positions and his radical speeches on France. The Beninese pan-Africanist activist Kemi Seba, whose real name is Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi, “is declared to have lost French nationality,” states a lapidary decree of Monday July 8, published on the 9th in the Official Journal.

Provocative, close to Dieudonné, Kemi Seba is used to sulphurous and condemned media outings. Quite naturally, he was quick to share his reaction on his X account (ex-Twitter): “No more French nationality? Glory to God. I am freed from this burden”, he rejoices before recalling that he had burned his passport in March when the Essonne prefecture had tried to ban one of his conferences in Fleury-Mérogis due to “risk of disturbances to public order”. He was already targeted by a procedure for the revocation of nationality.

“My client is very happy,” Kemi Seba’s lawyer, Juan Branco, told AFP. “He had given me a letter of renunciation.” [à la nationalité française, ndlr] even before the procedure was initiated, and takes note of it. The lawyer also considered that the decision had been taken by the government “because of the origins” of Kemi Seba.

“Relay of Russian propaganda”

In France, Kemi Seba was accused last year by Renaissance MP Thomas Gassilloud, then chairman of the National Assembly’s defense committee, of being a “relay of Russian propaganda” and of serving “a foreign power that fuels anti-French sentiment” in sub-Saharan Africa. A joint investigation by the German daily Die Welt, the magazine Sources d’Arte et Capa and the weekly Jeune Afrique accused the activist of having been financed for more than a year (between May 2018 and July 2019) by various companies of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late founder of the Russian Wagner militia. During this period, the activist had received nearly 440,000 euros from Wagner, who also planned to finance a political party for him.

Now the head of the Urgences panafricanistes group and with a large following on his social networks, Kemi Seba has been convicted several times in France for inciting racial hatred. He was notably the former leader of Tribu Ka, a small group that claimed to be anti-Semitic and advocated the separation of blacks and whites before being dissolved in 2006 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.

“Having left France 14 years ago” according to his statements, Kemi Seba has organized or participated in several demonstrations hostile to the CFA franc in Africa in recent years, where he has been regularly arrested, expelled or turned back, notably in Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea.