Pan-Africanist influencer Kemi Seba, arrested last week by South African police, has requested political asylum in Pretoria, one of his lawyers told AFP on Monday after his court appearance for illegal stay in South Africa.

Subject to an arrest warrant in Benin which accuses him of supporting the attempted coup in December, Kemi Seba remains in detention until the examination of a bail application on Wednesday, April 29.

"For now, we are only accused of illegal immigration," his lawyer Sesedi Phooko told AFP. "We also contest this accusation, as we have already filed a request for political asylum in this country," he added.

Kemi Seba, who appeared in court with his 18-year-old son, a French national, settled in South Africa five months ago, according to a member of his entourage. "He was in an irregular situation because he had overstayed his visa by two months and had not regularized his status," the source explained.

The influencer, whose real name is Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi, and who has 1.5 million subscribers, was arrested along with the leader of the Afrikaner identity group Bittereinders, François van der Merwe, who also appeared in court on Monday, an AFP journalist observed.

The prosecution requested a postponement during the hearing in order to verify the authenticity of Kemi Seba's passport, his residency status and the suspicions of money laundering against him.

François van der Merwe was paid 250,000 rand, or about 13,000 euros, "to help them cross the Limpopo River and get to Zimbabwe," according to a police statement.

The same source close to Kemi Seba asserts that the two men, whose political positions appear to be diametrically opposed, had had no direct contact and did not know each other before their arrest last Monday.

Both have ties to Russia. François van der Merwe travelled to Moscow in September 2024 to meet with an organization linked to the ultranationalist oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who is under Western sanctions.

In October 2024, Kemi Seba was taken into custody in France on suspicion of "links" with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, then released, although the investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office was still ongoing recently.

At the head of the NGO called "Pan-African Emergencies" and known for his radical diatribes against France and African powers allied with Paris, Kemi Seba hailed December 7 as "the day of liberation" of Benin at the time of a failed coup attempt.

A fierce opponent of outgoing President Patrice Talon, he was briefly detained in 2019 and 2023 during visits to Benin.

Democratic space has shrunk there over the past decade, according to many observers. In 2025, a Beninese journalist critical of the government was arrested on July 10 by Ivorian authorities and extradited to Benin, after being invited by Abidjan to participate in a digital innovation fair.

Born in France and Benin, Kemi Seba, 45, was stripped of his French nationality in 2024. He holds a Nigerien diplomatic passport, granted by the ruling junta that came to power in a coup d'état in 2023. Niger, Benin's neighbour, pursues a virulent anti-Western policy and has moved closer to Moscow.

Kemi Seba's arrest coincides with the release on social media of private recordings in which he criticizes the military in power in several Sahel countries as well as Russia.

AFP