Eight pallbearers – some wearing tracksuits emblazoned with the FIFA logo – carried a coffin on their shoulders. Alongside them, referee whistles echoed the tune of a song being sung by the funeral procession.
It was September 2020, and hundreds of people had gathered at a sports stadium in the Central African Republic (CAR) to bid farewell to Jean Claude Sendeoli.
Sendeoli was a teacher at a secondary school in the capital, Bangui, and a referee for the country’s football federation. After his death, students posted messages on the school’s Facebook page to remember their much-loved teacher while FIFA named him in its 2020 obituaries, closing the book on his journey.
But what nobody knew was that even after he was laid to rest, his identity was not.
In the years that followed, photos of Sendeoli would become part of a pro-Russian propaganda campaign – one that used his image to create a fake persona whose articles have been published in media outlets in more than a dozen African countries.
And it was the images and videos of his final farewell that helped Al Jazeera uncover the propaganda campaign and prove that a man who claimed to be a geopolitical expert did not exist at all.
Paid-for content
“Good evening, sir. My name is Aubin Koutele, I am a journalist for TogoMedia24,” read the February 2022 WhatsApp message obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit).
“I would like to know the conditions of publishing an already edited article on your website,” wrote Koutele, who edits and publishes the Togolese news website.
The answer from the Burkinabe newspaper came quickly.
“We will have a look, and if it aligns with our editorial guidelines, we will publish it,” the editor replied.
Like many media outlets around the world, revenue for publications in Burkina Faso has dwindled.
As a result, many have resorted to finding new sources of income, including publishing paid-for content. Usually, these paid articles advertise a product or service, but sometimes they are of a different nature.
This was one such case.
Koutele, the journalist who approached the Burkinabe editor, sent over the first of several articles. “Article not signed,” the editor told Koutele, referring to the missing byline.
“I’m sorry. Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada [is the writer],” Koutele replied.
Shortly after, the article was published. Koutele later sent the newspaper payment for the piece, about $80.
Stolen identity
Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada, according to his social media profiles, is a political and military analyst from CAR who now lives in Paris. He’s published at least 75 articles, mainly about the political situation in Francophone Africa.
He focuses on the role of Russia, France and the United Nations, and his articles have headlines like: “The reasons for anti-French sentiment in West Africa” and “France’s jealousy of the successes of the Russian presence in Mali”.
Analysing the articles, a clear viewpoint comes across in almost all of them – one that presents French influence in Africa as detrimental for the continent and the presence of Russian soldiers as beneficial.
But, on closer inspection, some things do not add up about Dongobada.
An analysis by the I-Unit shows that Dongobada’s first article appeared in February 2021 with no evidence of him existing before that.
He claims to be a political and military expert, yet has no links to any university, think tank or private institution, and there are no research papers or academic publications under his name.
Dongobada seems to exist only on social media – specifically Facebook and X – and as a writer for outlets across French-speaking Africa, from Senegal to Mali and Cameroon to Burkina Faso. Al Jazeera reached out to several of the outlets that published him. None the I-Unit spoke to had ever talked to Dongobada directly.
And then there are the profile pictures he uses on social media.
Dongobada doesn’t just look like Jean-Claude Sendeoli, the teacher and referee whose funeral was held in September 2020. Dongobada’s X and Facebook profiles use one of Sendeoli’s photos from 2017 (flipped right to left), indicating it was simply taken from the deceased man’s Facebook page.
“Someone, whether a state or a nonstate actor, is using the identity of someone who’s died to do their own propaganda,” said Michael Amoah, a political scientist at the London School of Economics, whose research looks at postcolonial politics and power transitions in Africa.
Disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz said she was “quite surprised they chose someone who has died instead of just using the profile of a living person or potentially using artificial intelligence” to construct the false identity.
An analysis showed that Dongobada is not the only seemingly nonexistent person to write for Francophone African media: The I-Unit identified more than 15 writers and at least 200 articles published since early 2021.
Some of the writers, but not all, had bylines in the paid-for articles Koutele submitted to outlets for publication. Most of the writers call themselves freelance journalists in their newspaper bios with some – like Dongobada – self-identifying as analysts or experts. However, for each of them, there is no employment history and, in many cases, no social media profile or other evidence to indicate they are a real person.
As with Dongobada, writers who do not appear to exist having written articles critical of France and the UN point to a concerted effort to convey a political message, experts said.
Most of the articles Al Jazeera analysed were not only critical of France’s role in its former colonies but also remarkably positive about Russia. Each of the countries where the articles appeared has seen an increased Russian presence, and some are led by military governments favourable towards Moscow.
The article biases and metadata from Koutele’s correspondence uncovered by the I-Unit point to likely Russian involvement, according to the experts Al Jazeera spoke to.
“I think a lot of states are engaged in information operations through their covert mechanisms,” Jankowicz said when presented with the I-Unit’s evidence.
“What makes Russia different is that they’re doing this by taking on personas,” added the expert, who is CEO of the American Sunlight Project, which combats online disinformation.
Francafrique falling, Russia rising?
France was once the colonial ruler of more than a dozen countries in Africa. Now, after decades of economic, military and cultural prominence, its power on the continent is waning – while a growing number of West and Central African leaders open their doors to Russia.
“France wants to maintain Francafrique, which is the political system whereby colonial France keeps its former colonies in check, particularly economically,” Amoah said. “Although these countries have gained independence, … they are still not economically independent.”
According to Russian political analyst Alexander Nadzharov, only a small fraction of Africans benefitted under this system.
“The populations of those countries are tired of the existing socioeconomic model because they don’t see it working for them,” said Nadzharov, who researches Russia’s and France’s role in Francophone Africa at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
“The key pillar of the Francafrique system is the elite networks,” he said, speaking about France’s influence in the region, where leaders, including Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara, are strong French allies. “Everyone has studied in French universities, everyone has bank accounts in France, everyone has assets in France. The perception is that the elites are bought – that the elites are too tied to the West.”
As a result, the relationship between France and the populations of many Francophone African countries has become strained. This growing resentment has recently had an effect on the internal politics of many countries in the region.
In the past five years, there were more than 12 attempted coups in West and Central Africa, and nine of them were successful. Most took place in former French colonies where rulers friendly to – and in many cases supported by – France were in charge.
New leaders have sought to decrease French influence, from Chad and Niger ordering French troops to leave to Senegal renaming monuments and rewriting textbooks.
Meanwhile, a regional vacuum is creating an opportunity for Russia to make inroads and increase its influence, such as its involvement in mining in CAR and security in Mali and Burkina Faso.
At the same time, it looks to be finessing its image through media influence campaigns like the one identified by Al Jazeera.
“Russia’s MO for a long time has been to identify fissures or grievances in society and to really tear at those fissures, to tear the fabric of society apart,” Jankowicz said.
“Russia has used false amplifiers, fake accounts before, most notably in the [2016] US election,” she explained.
“The idea is to give the guise of grassroots support to the pro-Russian viewpoint. And i