This post is an update of October 2011′s list of African leaders with a Facebook presence. The numbers and a couple of links have been adjusted. Stats from July 2010, December 2010, March 2011, and June 2011 are still available.

As always, the challenge is determining what share of fans of these pages are diasporans. A solid number of nations – most notably Liberia, Senegal, and Gabon – have seen extraordinary Facebook fan page growth in the past 4 months. Pages for leaders in these nations have shown 144%, 110%, and 92% growth rates, respectively, in the number of fans. Abdoulaye Wade’s fans have grown tremendously in advance of this month’s presidential elections. Cameroon’s Paul Biya witnessed similar interest on his Facebook page last year during the election season (his page has grown by 18% since). Other updates for February 2012 include:

• Burkina Faso: Blaise Comparoré has a very official-looking page, even if it may not be official.
• Rwanda: The widely-popular unofficial page for Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is gone – it boasted nearly 20,000 fans. Perhaps this was a move by leadership to reduce confusion?
• Zambia: We found the official page for Zambia’s Rupiah Banda.
• Gabon: Ali Bongo’s page continues to grow by huge margins after becoming official less than a year ago.
• Egypt: Added community page for Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, although there is limited social interest around him.
• Madagascar: Added community page for Andry Rajoelina.
• DRC: The “official page” for Joseph Kabila, with previously 4,000 fans, has been removed. A profile with that many still exists however.
• Chad: One of the two public profiles for Idriss Deby has been removed.

Growth trends & countries of interest:

• Median fan growth rate: 10% over 4.5 months (was 15% for 4 months from June-October 2011 and 23% for 3 months from March-June 2011)
• Given a consistent page, only the leaders of DRC and Seychelles lost fans over the time period.
• Fan count growth of leader pages with greater than 10,000 fans has slowed substantially since last October. Growth is positive, but is only in the 5-10% range: Algeria 14% (was 17%), Ghana 8% (was 10%), Kenya 4% (was 5%), Morocco 2% (was 5%), Nigeria 7% (was 13%), Tanzania 9% (was 8%), Zimbabwe 3% (was 3%).
• Less than 5% growth in Benin, Guinea, Mauritania, Somalia. Benin, and Guinea also were in this range last year.
• The page for Libya’s Col. Gaddafi grew by another 23%
• Mauritania still only has 4 fans of the community page for Ba Mamadou Mbaré. Guinea-Bissau is not much better with 14 fans for Malam Bacai Sanha.
• Solid (40%) growth in Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali.
• Ethiopia’s fan base has doubled from 700 to 1,400 since June 2011 suggesting either a growing interest in politics by diasporans or a domestic adoption of Facebook.
• In order of sheer fan base there is no change in order: Nigeria (699k), Kenya (98k), Morocco (86k), Zimbabwe (67k), Tanzania (35k)

The list as of February 25, 2012:

 

Country	President (or other title)	Facebook Page Type (hyperlinked)	# of Likes	% Change since October 2011 (4.5 months)
Algeria	Abdelaziz Bouteflika	Official Page	23071	14%
Angola	Jose Dos Santos	Community Page	3067	40%
Benin	Thomas Yayi Boni	Official Page	6577	4%
Botswana	Seretse Khama Ian Khama	Unofficial Page	8237	25%
Burkina Faso	Blaise Compaoré	Unofficial Page	10167	8%
Burundi	Pierre Nkurunziza	Community Page	355	13%
Cameroon	Biya Paul	Official Page	11393	18%
Cape Verde	Pedro Pires	Community Page	958	10%
Central African Republic	Francois Bozize Yangouvonda	Personal Profile?	191	7%
Chad	Lt Gen. Idriss Deby	Public Profile 2	612	16%
Comoros	Ahmed Abdallah Sambi	Community Page	82	9%
Congo, Republic of	Denis Sassou-Nguesso	Official Page | Private Profile	7254 / 1244	10% / -2%
Congo, Democratic Republic of	Joseph Kabila	Private Profile	4003	-4%
Cote d’Ivoire	Alassane Ouattara	Unofficial Page	16132	9%
Djibouti	Ismail Omar Guelleh	Unofficial Page?	4626	7%
Egypt	Mohamed Hussein Tantawi	Community Page	286	n/a
Equatorial Guinea	Brig. Gen. (ret) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	Community Page	98	27%
Eritrea	Isaias Afeworki	Unofficial Page	7658	5%
Ethiopia	Meles Zenawi (PM)	Community Page	1435	38%
Gabon	Ali Bongo Ondimba	Official Page	13023	92%
The Gambia	Yahya Jammeh	Unofficial Page	6241	7%
Ghana	John Evans Atta-Mills	Unofficial Page	21782	8%
Guinea	Sékouba Konaté	Unofficial Page	3702	2%
Guinea-Bissau	Malam Bacai Sanha	Community Page	14	27%
Kenya	Mwai Kibaki	Unofficial Page	97765	4%
Lesotho	King Letsie III (King)	Unofficial Page	5303	6%
Liberia	Ellen Sirleaf Johnson	Community Page	2698	144%
Libya	Col. Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi	Unofficial Page	9199	27%
Madagascar	Andry Rajoelina	Community Page	484	n/a
Malawi	Bingu wa Mutharika	Community Page	269	37%
Mali	Amadou Toumani Toure	Unofficial Page	322	46%
Mauritania	Ba Mamadou Mbaré	Community Page	4	0%
Mauritius	Sir Anerood Jugnauth	Unofficial Page	860	8%
Morocco	King Mohamed VI (King)	Unofficial Page	86353	2%
Mozambique	Armando Emilio Guebuza	Official Page?	4044	15%
Namibia	Hifikepunye Pohamba	Community Page	714	20%
Niger	Salou Djibo (Head of Military Junta)	Unofficial Page	1380	5%
Nigeria	Dr. Goodluck Jonathan	Official Page	699073	7%
Rwanda	Paul Kagame	Community Page	2184	n/a
Sao Tome & Principe	Fradique De Menezes	Community Page	14	17%
Senegal	Abdoulaye Wade	Unofficial Page | Community Page	1882 / 1263	107% / 115%
Seychelles	James Michel	Public Profile	4750	-2%
Sierra Leone	Ernest Bai Koroma	Community Page	1448	13%
Somalia	Sharif Ahmed	Unofficial Page	3594	4%
South Africa	Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma	Community Page	5411	37%
South Sudan	Salva Kiir Mayardit	Community Page	910	21%
Sudan	Omar Hassan al-Bashir	Community Page	158	14%
Swaziland	King Msati III (King)	Community Page	76	15%
Tanzania	Jakaya Kikwete	Official Page	34727	9%
Togo	Faure Gnassingbe	“Fan Club”	4684	6%
Tunisia	Fouad Mebazaa	Unofficial Page	46	18%
Uganda	Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni	Unofficial Page / Profile	7085 / 1332	10% / -1%
Zambia	Rupiah Banda	Official Page?	3332	n/a
Zimbabwe	Robert Gabriel Mugabe	Community Page	7962	48%
Zimbabwe	Morgan Tsvangirai (PM)	Official Page	67190	3%

 

The above table lists all top African heads of state (usually President) and provides a link to the one or two most popular Facebook pages, groups, or profiles for a given leader. The final column shows how many users are interested in the particular leader. Loose definitions of the page-types:

• Official page: A page run by the actual leader.
• Public profile: A presidential account with a public wall and information about the leader.
• Private profile: An seemingly real account without a public wall or information about the leader.
• Unofficial page: A user-created page that serves as the leader.
• Group: A user-created group dedicated to a leader.
• Community page: A placeholder courtesy of Wikipedia for cases when no user-generated page exists.