Well said.

Part of the problem here is that for years if not decades, African people have been gullible and all too wiling to help entrench the myth that "Boko Haram" was not funded and inflated by money from outside powers, or that "Al Qaida afilliated" was a real thing. Even when it waa uncovered that the founder of Al Quaida was a CIA contractor, that ISIS was established in US prisons in Iraq..and that Al Nusra was a welcome partner of the western powers.... Africans did not revise the narrative of these groups.

Not even the evidence of the western powers "helping" to fight these mirages, but somehow not suceeding....while Snowden showed that they had acess to all communications, and satellites that can from outer space pinpoint a cat on the ground, Africans did not revise their shared understanding of these narratives.

It is in this fertile ground for fairytales, left open by Africans, that this sort of hybrid warfare and gaslighting can flourish. Here, investigative journalists like David Hundeyin have uncovered the sabotage being quietly perpetrated by the hundreds of ostensibly local African media that are in fact largely funded by the NGOs and think tanks of the same countries which you here point out, later on exploit the mythologies and lies built in these media.

People in Africa need to wise up, get a lot more cynical, and reject these lies early on - cut them down before they ever have a chance to take root.

Defending their mindspace is an essential part of defending their sovereginity.