South African police said they have arrested prominent pan\u2011African and pro-Russian activist Kemi Seba who is wanted by authorities in Benin \u200bfor backing an attempted coup there, and have launched extradition proceedings.<\/p>\n
Benin \u200cissued an arrest warrant for Seba in December 2025 for “inciting rebellion” after he publicly supported an\u00a0attempted coup\u00a0that was later foiled.<\/p>\n
The 45\u2011year\u2011old Beninese citizen was arrested at a \u200bshopping centre in Pretoria along with his 18\u2011year\u2011old son and \u200ba South African national, South African police said in a statement \u2060late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Seba, who has mostly been underground and much less \u200bon social media since the failed coup, could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
“Preliminary \u200binvestigations have revealed that the father is alleged to be a wanted fugitive in France and Benin for criminal activities relating to crimes against the state,” the statement \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Seba, born Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi in France to Beninese parents, \u200bis an activist who has had his French nationality revoked. He is a vocal \u200ccritic \u2060of French political, economic and military influence in West Africa and has adopted a strongly pro\u2011Russian stance, portraying Moscow as a counterweight to Western influence in the West African Sahel region.<\/p>\n
South African police alleged Seba and his \u200bson were being \u200bassisted by the \u2060South African who they said had been paid approximately 250,000 rand ($15,300) to help them cross the Limpopo River into \u200bZimbabwe, with the intention of proceeding to Europe. Police \u200balso confiscated \u2060cellphones and approximately 318,000 rand.<\/p>\n
Seba was appointed adviser to Abdourahamane Tchiani, leader of Niger’s military government, after the Sahel state expelled French and other Western \u2060forces \u200band deepened security ties with Russia.<\/p>\n
Seba, his son \u200band the South African citizen were remanded in custody until April 20, the South African \u200bpolice statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African police said they have arrested prominent pan\u2011African and pro-Russian activist Kemi Seba who is wanted by authorities in Benin \u200bfor backing an attempted coup there, and have launched extradition proceedings. Benin \u200cissued an arrest warrant for Seba in December 2025 for “inciting rebellion” after he publicly supported an\u00a0attempted coup\u00a0that was later foiled. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[5035,3741,122,5036],"class_list":["post-20523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-kemi-seba","tag-pretoria","tag-south-africa","tag-stellio-gilles-robert-capo-chichi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20525,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20523\/revisions\/20525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}