E-Business
Dictators in Africa Using Social Media to Cling to Power
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni is suspected of using fake social media accounts to consolidate his power.
He wouldn’t be the only one in Africa. Is social media becoming a threat to democracy on the continent?
In early 2021, Facebook (Meta) deactivated more than 20 accounts linked to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party. Shortly afterward, Twitter also followed suit, closing 11% of the nearly 3,500 accounts worldwide that allegedly spread pro-government propaganda.
Thus in total, almost 440 Ugandan social media accounts close to the Ugandan government have been blocked by social media networks in the East African country to date.
Both Twitter and Facebook accuse the Ugandan government of using social media as a tool politicians to manipulate public opinion, spread disinformation, and intimidate the opposition. Facebook also stated that as part of its strategy, the Ministry of Information had been using “fake and duplicate accounts” for propaganda purposes.
A new favorite tool used by autocratic leaders
When Facebook took action, President Museveni’s press secretary, Don Wanyama, whose Facebook and Instagram accounts were also suspended, accused Facebook of trying to influence the 2021 election in Uganda:
“Shame on the foreign powers who think they can impose a puppet government on Uganda by disabling the online accounts of NRM supporters,” Wanyama wrote on Twitter at the time. Twitter said in a statement, however, that “(i)n most cases, the accounts were suspended for various violations of our platform manipulation and spam policies.”
According to analysis by the Oxford Internet Institute, the spread of misinformation driven by political organizations on social media has been sharply on the rise in recent years. The report states that in 2017, disinformation campaigns were carried out in 28 countries. Three years later, that figure had risen to 81 countries.
“The spread of fake news is a real problem,” said Ugandan human rights activist Nicholas Opiyo in a DW interview. “This method is gaining ground in countries whose leaders are desperately struggling to maintain their image and reputation on social media.”
According to Opiyo, this involves using bots and trolls, computer programs, and paid users who use fake accounts to flood social media with posts favorable to the government.
Bans across Africa
In Tanzania, Uganda’s neighbor, Twitter took similar action, removing 268 accounts for spreading “malicious reports” directed at members and supporters of the Tanzanian human rights organization Fichua Tanzania and its founder.
Meanwhile, similar reports are also surfacing from west Africa: In Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari “criticized the activists of the #EndSARS movement in June and called for action to be taken against them. However, Twitter deleted this call, and in reponse, Buhari’s government banned Nigerians from accessing the micro-blogging site,” Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft, Africa expert at Amnesty International in Germany, told DW.
The #EndSARS movement was initated by social media-savvy young Nigerians, who sought to put pressure on the government to abolish Nigeria’s controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit. The campaign also called for better overall governance in West Africa’s largest democracy.
Social media restrictions: ‘overreaction’ by elites
Back in Uganda, the government in the capital Kampala has also been trying to make it harder for Ugandans to get independent information online by imposing taxes on mobile data. The government also doesn’t shy away from temporarily shutting down social media alrogether, as was witnessed during the run-up to the presidential election a year ago.
At the time, Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa initially justified the move by saying that Facebook and Twitter had shut down government accounts, making the social media blackout sound like a retaliatory measure. However, after the January 16 election, Kutesa said the shut-down had been “a necessary step to stop the biting language and incitement to violence.”
Angelo Izama, a political consultant and journalist from Uganda, describes the move rather as an “overreaction” rooted in deeply-held patriarchal beliefs. Izama says that “(t)he political leadership, especially here in sub-Saharan Africa, comes from a generation where society was structured so that the child would not contradict the father.”
“If it did, it was punished. And that’s the relationship between the state and the citizen,” Izama told DW.
But he says that society is changing, he says, leaving such political elites in the dust. Young people in particular, he highlights, are now able with the help of the internet to react immediately to laws and bans, and make their opinions known about the performance of the government or of private institutions.
Surveillance via social media
In 2021, social media shutdowns also took place in Burkina Faso, South Sudan, Senegal, Congo, Zambia, Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Sudan. Again, the reasons were mainly political, with protests, elections and political unrest resulting in information shutdowns across the continent, with no end in sight:
“It will take a while for those in power to understand that young people today expect them to sit down and talk to them,” political consultant Angelo Izama said. “It will also take time for those in power to stop using surveillance and monitoring as a means to counter criticism.”
Meanwhile, some governments are even going further and targeting their citizens directly by exploiting their internet affinity: “Spy software is being bought by governments and installed specifically on smartphones,” Amnesty expert Ulm-Düsterhöft told DW. “We documented this last year for Togo and Rwanda, for example. First, apps are downloaded via email attachments, then the software instals itself and accesses microphones, cameras, and social media.”
Ulm-Düsterhöft warns users not to download any unknown apps, take a close look at dubious social media accounts, and contact the app operators if in doubt.
Risks and opportunities
According to a report published by the South African Institute of International Affairs, shutting down the internet and arresting government critics voicing their views on social media channels are signs that several governments in sub-Saharan Africa are becoming increasingly autocratic.
In Uganda, author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija posted comments that were critical of the government on social media, which led to his detention, during which he allegedly was tortured by security agents.
Human rights activist Opiyo says that with reports like these, it is becoming clear that the earlier view of social media as “a liberating force for democracy” is disappearing: “(N)ow we see the dangers associated with it, and how social media can be used to undermine democratic processes. Social media is becoming another tool of oppression.”
Opiyo believes that this is why social media regulations are becoming necessary. But he also calls for users to act responsibly and remember that not everything found on social media is true.
African startups raised more than $345 million across 65 deals in May, more than double the amount raised in the same period of last year, according to a report by Briter, a research and business intelligence firm.
The report disclosed that both the number of deals and participating companies declined, confirming a growing trend of fewer companies raising funds in larger sizes.
It said fintech attracted the highest share of funding in May, accounting for 34 percent of the total, while cleantech followed closely, driven by a debt deal from Sun King. The company raised $80 million (in local currency) to expand clean energy access in Nigeria.
“Equity remains the primary instrument in terms of total value. There’s no doubt about it; in fact, equity deals with disclosed amounts captured more than half of the total funding volume in May.
“However, debt financing is increasingly proving its weight. Although it accounted for only 8 percent of all deals, it represented 32 percent of the total funding, highlighting the typically larger size of debt transactions. With the rise of specialised vehicles targeting early-stage businesses, debt is becoming an increasingly important part of Africa’s innovation funding landscape,” it said.
Briter’s report added that grants continued to play a vital role in early-stage support, especially in the education technology (EdTech) sector. The Mastercard Foundation led the pack in grant activity, funding a new cohort of EdTech innovators in Nigeria and Kenya. Each selected startup is set to receive $100,000 in grant funding, in addition to mentorship and business development support.
Multilaterals also made a strong showing in May, it said. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a World Bank Group member, issued a $179.6 million guarantee to CleanTech firm KOKO Networks. The support will help scale its clean energy solutions across Kenya.
“This deal not only demonstrates growing international confidence in African climate ventures but also signals a promising pathway for other asset-intensive startups in clean cooking, agriculture, and renewable energy,” the report said.
From a geographic perspective, Egypt emerged as the continent’s fundraising powerhouse for the month, contributing 51 percent of all funding raised. The country recorded 12 deals across equity, debt, and bond instruments. Notably, FinTech platform MNT-Halan raised $50 million through a bond issuance, further illustrating the diversification of capital-raising mechanisms in the region.
Outside Egypt, funding was distributed across Africa’s three other key markets, which are Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, with limited activity recorded in countries such as Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, and Uganda, each registering between one and three deals.
In terms of exits, the African tech landscape continues to mature. Three companies—Baobab+, Qardy, and Shopa—were acquired in May, bringing the total number of exits this year to 22. This already surpasses last year’s count for the same period. Qardy was acquired by Catalyst Partners Middle East (CPME) in a disclosed deal valued at $23 million, the report added.
By Nancy Werteen
When you get anti-hacking advice, you’ve probably heard “Don’t use a simple password,” or “Don’t plug in that USB you found on the ground.”
But there’s one form of hacking that doesn’t always require a computer, and it costs businesses about 4.88 million dollars a year.
Modern hackers aren’t trying to get into your computer; they’re trying to get into you.
“They’ll try to learn about you a little bit, and they’ll try to use that information against you to try to get you to complete some action, maybe to send somebody some money,” said Kevin Moran, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Cyber Security and Privacy Cluster, University of Central Florida.
IBM calls this human hacking, because it exploits human error instead of system error.
“With people just being busy and maybe not very carefully checking some of the emails or the phone calls that they get, can be something unfortunately that people can fall victim to,” said Moran.
Also known as social engineering, this often takes the form of phishing, where the hacker tries to “fish” the information out of you by impersonating family, friends, or even your bank.
There’s also baiting, where the hacker baits you with something of value. Remember the Nigerian prince scam?
That’s a famous example of baiting. There’s also pretexting, where the hacker will claim the victim has already been hacked, and that the hacker can fix it if you just send over your passwords. So, what can you do?
“Just as a rule of thumb, instead of clicking on links and emails, just go to the website yourself. And that will prevent, a lot of these types of attacks from happening,” explained Moran.
Phishing can take many forms.
Spear phishing targets people with access to confidential information, often to get access into an entire business, and whale phishing targets CEOs or political figures.
Search engine phishing is when hackers create fake websites promising services or goods you’ll never receive.
Angler phishing is when hackers create fake social media accounts impersonating famous people or companies.
Finally, vishing and smishing is phishing done through phone calls and texts respectively.
Federal government has said that it has successfully captured 59,786 inmates, representing approximately 74 percent of the total prison population into the National Identity Number (NIN) database.
This figure is based on a total of 80,879 inmates across 256 custodial centres across the country.
Abubakar Umar, spokesman, Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Deputy Controller of Corrections, who made this disclosure in a statement issued on Sunday in Abuja, dismissed recent media reports alleging that the NIN registration had yet to begin in custodial centres.
Umar described such report as misleading, inaccurate, and not representative of the current situation.
According to Umar, the NIN registration exercise within the correctional facilities was ongoing and has achieved substantial progress.
He credited the achievement to collaboration between the NCoS and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), which has enabled successful enrollment of majority of inmates into the national identity database.
According to him, “As of June 7, 2025, a total of 59,786 inmates, roughly 74 percent cent of the total inmate population have been captured on the NIMC platform,” Umar said.
“Efforts are ongoing to register the remaining inmates, and necessary mechanisms have been established to ensure the seamless completion of the process.”
He emphasised that the assertion that NIN registration has not started in custodial centres was factually incorrect and overlooks the extensive work already carried out.
The Service reaffirmed its commitment to integrating all inmates into national data systems, including NIN registration, as part of broader efforts to support rehabilitation, reintegration, and digital inclusion for individuals in custody.
Umar also urged media outlets to confirm their information with appropriate authorities before publication to prevent the spread of misinformation that could undermine the Service’s progress and public understanding.
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