Following his involvement in a failed coup attempt in Benin in December 2025, the activist Kemi Seba has been taken into custody in South Africa. As more information surfaces regarding his apprehension, the most startling detail involves his ties to a white supremacist terrorist leader—an individual whose ideology is diametrically opposed to the Black communities Seba claims to represent.
This unusual partnership highlights shifting influence patterns within Southern Africa. On Wednesday, April 15, South African authorities arrested Seba, a prominent figure in radical pan-Africanism, alongside François van der Merwe. At just 26 years old, Van der Merwe heads the “Bittereinders” (Those Who Fight to the End), a fringe group established in 2021 that purports to protect the Afrikaner minority from what they term “anti-white discrimination.” This movement is currently under heavy surveillance by the State Security Agency (SSA) due to its hundreds of armed supporters.
The Russian connection: The Society of the Double-Headed Eagle
The common denominator between the Black militant and the white supremacist is an entity known as the Society of the Double-Headed Eagle, also referred to as the Tsargrad network. This organization is steered by Konstantin Malofeev, an ultra-conservative Russian oligarch. Malofeev has been under international sanctions since 2014 for funding separatists in Ukraine and has faced investigations by New York prosecutors for evading those restrictions.
In September, François van der Merwe travelled to Moscow at the invitation of Malofeev. Since that visit, he has been frequently featured in Russian state-controlled media. Despite being arrested twice recently—once for a physical altercation in December 2023 and again in January 2024 for public order offenses—Kremlin-backed outlets have framed the young Afrikaner as a “political prisoner.” Pro-Russian groups even organized a demonstration in his support right outside the Kremlin.
A decolonial activist turned pawn
In this complex geopolitical landscape, Kemi Seba appears to have transitioned from a leader to a tactical pawn. While he built his reputation on resisting “Western supremacism,” he is now inextricably linked to a faction dedicated to maintaining racial hierarchies that date back to the Apartheid era.
By partnering with the Bittereinders, Seba is doing more than just engaging with political radicals; he is siding with a group that views the Black majority of South Africa as their primary opponent. Most significantly, because the Bittereinders are designated as a terrorist organization within South Africa, Seba may be accused of facilitating their illegal activities on sovereign soil. Consequently, the legal challenges facing the Beninese activist are expected to be far more severe than initially suggested by early media reports.