![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-06-at-7.30.43-AM-1024x666.png\")
Beyonc\u00e9 kneels tearfully in prayer in an AI-generated video.<\/p>\nBurkina Faso\u2019s interim president, Capt. Ibrahim Traor\u00e9, stands at a podium listing Africa\u2019s riches. He names them as cobalt, platinum and uranium, and then asks why the continent, the world\u2019s richest in minerals, remains poor. It\u2019s a passionate speech about exploitation, corruption and neocolonialism. The speech is raw and defiant, its questions pertinent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica owns 70% of the world\u2019s cobalt reserves. Your cellphones, your computer, your electric car won\u2019t work without cobalt. This cobalt comes from Congo, but the Congolese can\u2019t afford cellphones,\u201d Traor\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n
\u201cGold flows like rivers from our lands, but our people swim in poverty,\u201d he adds. Then comes the punch line: \u201cColonialism didn\u2019t end, it changed shape. You used to come and occupy our lands, now you come and establish companies. You used to take by force, now you make agreements. You used to rule with the whip, now you rule with credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fiery speech that sounds like Traor\u00e9 \u2014 but it\u2019s not real. The entire video was generated by artificial intelligence. Traor\u00e9 never gave that speech. Still, it struck a nerve. Over 26 million people have watched and shared it. Some believe it\u2019s authentic. Others don\u2019t care. \u201cIf this is AI,\u201d one viewer commented, \u201cthen let AI lead us.\u201d Another posted: \u201cHe\u2019s saying what every African leader is too scared to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The speech is just one of numerous AI-generated videos flooding social media. And they\u2019re not just political: They\u2019re musical, visual and deeply emotional, and they feel real. On platforms like YouTube, TikTok and X, there\u2019s a growing number of videos in which celebrities like Beyonc\u00e9, Buju Banton, R. Kelly, Chris Brown, Diddy and Burna Boy appear to sing Traor\u00e9\u2019s praises in glowing terms. The music sounds eerily like the real artists. The vocals mimic their tone and cadence. The production quality is slick and the visuals are often overlaid with African flags, soldier salutes or protest imagery. But just like the political videos, the music and graphics are all AI-generated. These are not crude fakes. They\u2019re realistic-looking deepfakes made to trigger strong emotions.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a whole genre of these videos, and they\u2019re attracting millions of views. One of the most popular is \u201cGod Protect Ibrahim Traor\u00e9, Protect Burkina Faso,\u201d which opens with an AI-generated version of R. Kelly at a piano, dressed in black and white, singing a teary and heartfelt prayer for Traor\u00e9. The video cuts between this and dramatic clips of Traor\u00e9 leading troops, standing with citizens and surviving a failed coup.<\/p>\n
The lyrics talk about faith, sacrifice and African unity. In the song, R. Kelly is shown praying for \u201ca soldier in a holy fight,\u201d asking God to protect and guide Traor\u00e9. The chorus sounds like a real prayer, calling for justice and peace in Burkina Faso. Some versions also feature AI voices like that of Diddy, adding to the emotional pull.<\/p>\n
The lyrics of these songs contain consistent themes of African self-sufficiency and sovereignty alongside religious language. The imagery is also marked by melodrama. One video features the likeness of a sobbing Selena Gomez on her knees in a bulletproof vest. Others feature famous singers like R. Kelly with their hands clasped in prayer \u2014 and militancy. A verse by AI Eminem proclaims, \u201cthey tryna paint him like a villain cuz he won\u2019t kneel, pulling out the puppet strings make the West feel,\u201d while another song by AI R. Kelly states that Traor\u00e9 \u201ckicked out the soldiers of the old regime, told the West we reclaim the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some channels producing Traor\u00e9 music videos of different celebrities reuse the same lyrics in different meters and melodies. The same title, \u201cGod Protect Ibrahim Traor\u00e9,\u201d is used for several different songs with AI versions of real artists, with some receiving millions of views on YouTube.<\/p>\n
Beyonc\u00e9 kneels tearfully in prayer in an AI-generated video.<\/p>\n
But who exactly is the man behind the myth? Traor\u00e9 came to power in September 2022 after leading a coup that ousted Burkina Faso\u2019s then-leader, Paul-Henri Damiba. At just 34, Traor\u00e9 became the world\u2019s youngest head of state. He had risen through the ranks of the military during a time when the country was struggling to contain a growing jihadist insurgency. Once in power, he promised to restore security and reject foreign interference, particularly from the French, the former colonial rulers who still wield influence through their leftover holdings.<\/p>\n
Now, at 37, Traor\u00e9 has become one of the most talked-about leaders on the continent, building an image as a Pan-Africanist firebrand. His admirers often compare him to Thomas Sankara, the Marxist revolutionary sometimes referred to as Africa\u2019s Che Guevara.<\/p>\n
Traor\u00e9 styles himself after Sankara, since both were young military men who seized power during national crises and preached sovereignty and Pan-African pride. For many in Burkina Faso and beyond, Traor\u00e9 feels like a modern-day echo of Sankara\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons Traor\u00e9\u2019s image is spreading so quickly beyond geographic and linguistic boundaries is something Sankara never had: the power of AI. There is also a stream of viral clips portraying Traor\u00e9 as a fearless reformer who has stood up to France, the United Nations and other Western powers. In some, he\u2019s shown creating smartphones, launching satellites or standing next to rows of cheering soldiers \u2014 none of which actually happened.<\/p>\n
Nor is he the only one. In Mali, Col. Assimi Go\u00efta, who seized power in 2021, is featured in AI-generated videos that paint him as a national savior. In Sudan, both Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his rival, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (aka Hemedti), have been turned into digital heroes and portrayed as the \u201creal\u201d defenders of the country in online content, each trying to win hearts and minds in the middle of a brutal war.<\/p>\n
The number of these videos is astonishing. New Lines analyzed hundreds of AI videos on YouTube and TikTok featuring Traor\u00e9, Hemedti and Burhan. We identified relevant YouTube channels through repeated searches, conducted over the course of several weeks, for \u201cTraor\u00e9\u201d and analyzed 560 videos on five channels. The top 10 most viewed videos for each account garnered a total of over 5.2 million views.<\/p>\n
On TikTok, the views are even more astounding. New Lines identified 15 TikTok accounts featuring Traor\u00e9, 15 featuring Burhan and 15 featuring Hemedti. The 25 most viewed videos came from 10 different accounts and received a combined total of 95 million views. The top 100 most viewed videos came from 23 different accounts and received a combined total of 144 million views.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t just about deepfakes or clever editing. What\u2019s happening online speaks to something deeper: a real hunger for strong, authentic African leadership. AI-generated videos of men like Traor\u00e9, Go\u00efta, Burhan and Hemedti are going viral not because people are being fooled, but because they tap into frustration, pride and hope. They transform these men into heroic and larger-than-life figures. In some cases, people know the videos aren\u2019t real, but they still share them since they speak to what many want to be true. That emotional connection is shaping how people think, who they admire and what kind of leadership they\u2019re willing to follow, even if it\u2019s built on fiction.<\/p>\n
This emotional pull is not just widespread \u2014 it is deeply personal. John Mutuma is a law student at the University of Nairobi and, like many young Africans, he\u2019s been closely following the rise of Traor\u00e9. Mutuma boasts of watching many of the viral clips online, the fiery speeches, the proud declarations, the moments that seem to capture a kind of Pan-African defiance. And they move him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey touch something in me,\u201d he told New Lines. \u201cEven if they\u2019re not real, they speak to a truth I feel inside. I\u2019m Kenyan, but when I see what\u2019s happening in Burkina Faso, or Mali, or Niger, I see the same struggle. People are tired of the same kind of leadership. That\u2019s why they connect to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mutuma said that his X account is a space where he speaks out on issues that affect people across the continent. \u201cI try to dig deep, find out what\u2019s really happening and share what the Western media won\u2019t. They rarely say anything good about Africa. So when these videos show our leaders standing up, sounding strong, even if they\u2019re AI, I get why people share them. I do, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter to Mutuma that some of the speeches are fictional. What matters, he said, is the message they carry and how deeply people see their own reality reflected in them.<\/p>\n
Mutuma\u2019s reaction isn\u2019t unique. Across Africa and in the diaspora, many people are engaging with these videos, not as fact but as emotional truth. In a political landscape in which they often feel ignored, AI-generated clips offer something that feels honest, even if it isn\u2019t real.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what makes them both powerful and complicated. These videos blend myth, fragments of truth and history into something very appealing. Some show Traor\u00e9 inspecting troops or speaking, with words from famous revolutionaries added on. Videos show Traor\u00e9 delivering fabricated speeches across several different languages. The point is not to be accurate but to make people feel supported and inspired.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IBRAHIM-TRAORE-CHILD-GIF-min-min.gif\")
AI-generated video of Ibrahim Traor\u00e9 as a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a real hunger for stories of leadership that feel bold and honest,\u201d said Nanjira Sambuli, a researcher and policy strategist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who studies how digital technology is shaping governance, diplomacy and culture across Africa. \u201cThese videos are filling a vacuum left by broken promises. They offer people a vision, even if it\u2019s not real,\u201d Sambuli told New Lines.<\/p>\n
According to Sambuli, Traor\u00e9\u2019s appeal extends far beyond Burkina Faso. \u201cIt\u2019s this idea that our generation is taking on leadership by any means necessary,\u201d she said. Military figures like Traor\u00e9 and Mali\u2019s Go\u00efta are being recast as reformers. The internet, and AI, accelerate this shift.<\/p>\n
Yet the rise of these videos comes with real risks. Nanjira fears that in places like Sudan, where people are living through war and displacement, AI-generated clips can drown out the reality on the ground. And in Burkina Faso, where Traor\u00e9\u2019s image is being glorified, journalism is under attack. It\u2019s a sharp contradiction: While social media is flooded with feel-good digital heroism, those trying to report what\u2019s actually happening are being silenced.<\/p>\n
For Nanjira, this moment reflects a kind of online spectacle, where different actors are using whatever tools they can to control the story. And it raises deeper questions: Who gets to shape the story of Africa\u2019s future, and what happens when fiction spreads faster than fact?<\/p>\n
In places like the Sahel and Sudan, where conflict shapes daily life, fact-checking feels like chasing shadows, as AI-generated videos of military leaders spread fast, fuel emotion and leave little room for doubt or pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to get access to sources\u201d to debunk these claims, said African fact-checker Bilal Tairou in an interview with New Lines. \u201cThe challenge is that, often, sources are not accessible. Many media outlets have been shut down or forced into exile, and those in power make it difficult for anyone to share reliable information.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Tairou, some of these videos are clearly part of well-organized propaganda campaigns meant to stir up anti-Western feeling or boost support for military regimes backed by countries like Russia, Turkey or Iran. But plenty of the content is also shared by regular people caught in the moment, driven by emotion and a desire to show support. Its reach has spawned a digital ecosystem and made its creation lucrative. Several accounts analyzed by New Lines offer digital marketing courses to teach others how to profit from viral AI videos. Even with all this noise, fact-checkers are still doing the hard work of putting out evidence-based information.<\/p>\n
Paul Mucheke Wangechi is a 27-year-old digital marketer, videographer and website designer based in Kenya. A self-described Pan-Africanist, he runs a YouTube channel called The Sahel Informer. \u201cI\u2019m just an African crusader. I\u2019m just trying to get the message out there,\u201d he told New Lines over a WhatsApp call. He said AI makes it much easier and cheaper to produce content online, but added, \u201cWe have to make sure, even if you\u2019re using AI, we don\u2019t go overboard and try to make up things that are not there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the popularity of this kind of content, he said the message resonates with the desires of young Africans. \u201cAfricans have known nothing other than suppression and oppression for the longest\u201d time, he said. \u201cYou are given this idea of independence, and you are given this idea of democracy and all these things that you have been told [like] self-sovereignty. But it\u2019s not there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mucheke said he sees Traor\u00e9 as part of a broader shift in the region. He expressed disillusionment with African democracies but added, \u201cWe cannot ignore the fact that military intervention is not the solution. We need better solutions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s not afraid to be critical of Traor\u00e9 when he believes he is not fulfilling his promises or taking an authoritarian turn but that, so far, he is doing a good job. \u201cTime never lies. Time will tell us the truth about Traor\u00e9,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The real danger isn\u2019t just the spread of misinformation but how it quietly shifts the sense of what strong leadership looks like. In times when many, especially the young, feel ignored or failed by traditional politics, narratives that center on heroic leaders using force, defiance and control start to feel like strength.<\/p>\n
Traor\u00e9 is shown over and over again as a savior leading his troops and providing services that do not exist. What keeps this savior image alive, however, isn\u2019t truth, but the way it allows people to project their hopes and desires onto a heroic figure who comes to embody the state. His success became Burkina Faso\u2019s success and, perhaps, that of the continent.<\/p>\n
Journalist Samira Sawlani described to New Lines how her friends and acquaintances in Kenya \u2014 mainly people who are far removed from politics \u2014 repeated lines they\u2019d seen on WhatsApp or Instagram about Traor\u00e9 \u201cbringing real change.\u201d Even her landlady, a woman in her 60s, said she wished \u201cwe had someone like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Sawlani, this kind of distortion has consequences. The more viral these stories become, the harder it is for reality to cut through. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing these glowing stories about these men, but no one\u2019s talking about what\u2019s actually going on,\u201d Sawlani said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost blocking out the news we should be getting about conflict, displacement, school closures and people dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the danger, she says, isn\u2019t just misinformation. It\u2019s the rewriting of what strong leadership looks like. \u201cHe came into power through a coup,\u201d Sawlani pointed out. \u201cBut now that we\u2019re being fed all these so-called successes, it starts to sound like democracy is overrated. Maybe it\u2019s better to have a military government that tells the French to get lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this shift in perception isn\u2019t happening in a vacuum; it\u2019s landing hardest on the generation most plugged in and most disillusioned. It is young people, especially in places where coups have taken place or civil protest is bubbling, who are most vulnerable to this flood of misinformation. In countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan and even parts of Nigeria and Kenya, viral content doesn\u2019t just travel fast; it sticks. That\u2019s partly because many of the people consuming it have little experience filtering fact from fiction. The line between political reality and digital spectacle is blurred and there\u2019s not always a toolkit to sort it out. Conflict creates an environment of confusion in which falsehood is able to flourish.<\/p>\n
Tairou explained how AI-generated content and social media virality are helping to construct a new kind of hero in fatigues, one that feels familiar, even aspirational. \u201cThese videos of military leaders, often dressed in ceremonial uniforms or surrounded by crowds, are made to look like moments of destiny,\u201d he said. \u201cThey speak directly to people\u2019s frustration with democracy and decades of broken promises, and in places where schools are underfunded and traditional media has been silenced, that imagery becomes powerful, especially for the youth.\u201d<\/p>\n
An AI-generated video<\/p>\n
He added that this form of digital mythmaking rarely holds up under scrutiny. \u201cIn Burkina Faso, for instance, Traor\u00e9 is portrayed online as the one who\u2019s standing up to the West and taking charge, but when you look at the data, insecurity has worsened, and his popularity isn\u2019t as deep as it seems,\u201d Bilal said. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly emotional appeal. Social media has just made a small message look louder than it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Folahanmi Aina, a political scientist and security analyst at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, takes this concern further. He warns that young people, especially those lacking the critical skills to verify what they see online, risk seeing dictators like Traor\u00e9 as heroes and role models. This, he says, normalizes authoritarianism and blinds many to the long-term damage such leaders inflict on peace and stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders like Traor\u00e9 need to be seen for what they really are \u2014 dictators who have dismantled democracies and set back progress by years,\u201d Folahanmi told New Lines. \u201cThe viral spread of their digital image only amplifies this false narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, Folahanmi points out, this reliance on digital propaganda also reveals a sense of desperation. Real security and governance continue to decline under these regimes, even as the online personas of their leaders grow stronger. He adds that while some rural communities \u2014 driven by anti-Western sentiment and distrust of elites \u2014 may express solidarity with these leaders, the broader appeal is limited mostly to countries where coups have taken place.<\/p>\n
The danger, he warns, is that this digital mythmaking can convince a generation to accept authoritarianism as normal, overlooking the real costs to democracy, peace and development. \u201cThis is not just about fake videos or social media hype,\u201d Folahanmi said. \u201cIt\u2019s about the rewriting of political reality in ways that threaten the future of the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-06-at-8.00.50-AM-1024x666.png\")
A screenshot from an AI-generated music video praising Traor\u00e9.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s unfolding in Africa, particularly in the Sahel and Sudan, isn\u2019t just a wave of misinformation; it\u2019s a shift in how some people understand authority, leadership and belonging. The content being shared online is shaping perceptions in real time, especially among younger audiences who feel ignored by political systems. As fact-checkers and journalists try to keep up, the stakes remain high \u2014 not just for truth, but for the kind of leadership Africans believe in going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis digital mythmaking risks drowning out the harsh realities on the ground,\u201d Sawlani warned. \u201cPeople are still dying in these conflicts, but the stories we see online often block out those truths. If we lose sight of what\u2019s really happening, the consequences for peace and stability will be serious, and this will deeply affect Africa\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n