Introduction

Democracy is in crisis globally and specifically in Africa, where the failures of democratic governance by African leaders have triggered renewed waves of digital activism across the continent.1 Although youths account for 60% of Africa’s population, they are mostly marginalised in politics and governance on the continent.2 Consequently, the youths bear most of the brunt of bad governance and impunity. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, digital activism emerged as a fashionable form of political participation among African Youths. African youths have deployed digitally networked protests as a non-violent means of defending democracy, forcing political leaders to implement democratic and socioeconomic changes.3 Drawing insights from Kenya’s #RejectFinanceBill20244 in June 2025 and Nigeria’s #EndSars protest in October 2020, this study investigates the challenges associated with digital activism as a form of political participation by African youths and suggests strategies for optimising the outcomes of digitally networked protests on the continent.

Digital Media as ‘Liberation Technologies’

The early 2000s featured the emergence of scholarship that resonated with the prospective roles of the digital media in disrupting autocratic governments, promoting democratization, breaking glass ceilings, and paving the way for civil liberties and freedoms. In the aftermath of the outcomes of protests using these digitally networked technologies to force repressive governments in China and Malaysia to effect social change, Larry Diamond, a foremost American Political Sociologist, has nicknamed digital media ‘liberation technologies’ capable of promoting democratic changes globally.5 However, the positive role of digital media in the outbreak of the Arab Spring would further give more credence to Diamond’s assertion. The outcomes of deploying these technologies across the Middle East and North Africa remain contentious and indeterminate.6 These gaps have paved the way for the recent scholarship that seeks to intellectualize the real outcomes of the digital media and digitally networked protests in achieving the goals of protest movements.

The cascading effects of the Arab Spring in Africa  

Protest in Tunisia in 2011. Photo Credit: TUNISIA NEWS / Flickr

The cascading effects of the Arab Spring have triggered renewed waves of protests across Africa and resulted in the ingenious use of digital media in mobilising the populace from the online to the physical spaces where protesters express popular dissent on important public issues and demand social change. The #EndSARs protest was triggered by the goal of demanding an end to police brutality in Nigeria,7 and the popular #RejectFinanceBill2024 protest in Kenya was motivated by the popular rejection of President Ruto’s Finance Bill.8 The more recent protest in Angola was aimed at demanding a reversal of the hike in fuel pump prices. In these and other protests, the digital media played pivotal roles in the organization of protests, the mass mobilization of protesters, and the communication of the intended protest goals, the rendezvous, and the non-violent strategies of demanding social change. More importantly, digital media provides the opportunity to avoid the censorship that frustrates the use of old media in mobilizing people for popular actions.

The switch from liberation technologies to tools of digital repression

However, popular dissent, particularly digitally networked protests, translates into ‘small gains’ that inevitably fuel the resurgence of subsequent demonstrations.9 It is also attracting stiffer penalties in several states across Africa, where repressive leaders have mastered the art of augmenting their repression strategies with digital repression. African leaders now weaponize the supposed liberation technologies10 and emerging technological tools of closing regime-vulnerability gaps through digital repression.11 Having learnt from the downfalls of some of the world’s most repressive regimes during the Arab Spring, African leaders are increasing the cost and consequences of dissent by importing and deploying surveillance technologies as a strategy of frustrating social movements and disincentivising dissent by heightening the costs of participation. African leaders have also mastered deploying surveillance technologies to monitor and track dissenters, protest organisers, and persons identified as critical voices. This has resulted in the emasculating of protest and shrinking of the civic space, and facilitated the ease of identification, arrest, abduction, kidnapping, and extrajudicial killing of persons identified as threats to regime stability and longevity in Kenya,12 Nigeria,13 and elsewhere. For instance, in the aftermath of the Nigerian #EndSARS and the Kenyan #RejectFinanceBill Protest that led to the abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killing of scores of Nigerian and Kenyan Youths, the governments deployed state security operatives14 to track, intimidate, and threaten dissenters,15 and social media activists.

The unintended outcomes of digital activism

EndSARS Protest in Nigeria in 2020. Photo credit: Olatunde Adekoya / Flickr

The increasing cost and consequences of dissent through the combined deployment of digital and physical repression aptly suggest the need to rethink the deployment of digitally networked protests. Digitally networked physical protests translate into small gains, with indeterminate long-term impacts. The deployment of brute force in quelling protest movements could discourage future mobilization for social change. For instance, the deployment of brute force that resulted in the death of some Nigerian youths during the #EndSARS protests, the imprisonment of protesters, and the 7-month ban on the use of Twitter by the Buhari Administration further discouraged mass mobilisation of significant national impact, as turnouts of subsequent protests have dwindled over time in Nigeria. In Kenya, government security operatives’ actions resulted in the arrest and assassination of at least 60 protesters and abduction of another 66 in one of the most barbaric security operations in recent times. The bodies of such protesters were later found with undeniable marks of torture in abandoned quarries, forests, rivers, and mortuaries, arguably a way of passing a message across to discourage future dissent or risk being subject to the same treatment.16

Options for African Youths

Given these realities, African youths need to be more strategic in deploying digital activism by targeting higher-level protest goals, particularly breaking structural, constitutional, and institutional barriers to youths’ participation in leadership and governance. Protesters also need to demand that youth have access to the leadership of decision-making institutions that can promote their active involvement in deliberation and decision-making on important national issues that undermine youth development and optimal functioning in their respective states. African youths are more likely to achieve optimal outcomes by making high-level demands that address the root of protest objectives, rather than focusing solely on the immediate triggers.

Beyond the hype of protest outbreaks in forcing the government to engage protesters in dialogue,17African youths need to actively monitor the implementation of protest gains to prevent relapse that can result in governmental inaction and the implementation of suboptimal outcomes that could trigger subsequent protests. There is a need for protesters to establish an organised structure to negotiate protest gains with the government until satisfactory outcomes are reached, while simultaneously sustaining the momentum of digital engagement through slacktivism. Otherwise, subsequent protests will only translate into minuscule outcomes that can undermine further dissent actions as states continue to close regime-vulnerability gaps.

Endnotes

  1. Ayandele, Olajumoke. “Lessons from the #EndSARS Movement in Nigeria.”Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). https://acleddata.com/report/lessons-endsars-movement-nigeria.
  2. Diamond, Larry. “Liberation Technologies.”Journal of Democracy 21 (2010): 69–83. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.0.0190.
  3. Frantz, Erica, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and Joseph Wright. “Digital Repression in Autocracies.”Varieties of Democracy Institute, March 2022. https://www.v-dem.net/media/publications/digital-repression17mar.pdf.
  4. Human Rights Watch. “Kenya: Security Forces Abducted, Killed Protesters.” November 6, 2024.https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/06/kenya-security-forces-abducted-killed-protesters.
  5. Human Rights Watch. “Kenya: Events of 2024.”World Report 2025. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/kenya.
  6. Human Rights Watch. “Nigeria: A Year On, No Justice for #EndSARS Crackdown.” October 19, 2021.https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/19/nigeria-year-no-justice-endsars-crackdown.
  7. Idowu, Dare Leke. “Digital Activism and Social Change in Africa: Motivations, Outcomes and Constraints.”Journal of Contemporary African Studies 40, no. 4 (2022): 526–543. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2023.2177627.
  8. El Habti, Hicham. “Why Africa’s Youth Hold the Key to Its Development Potential.”World Economic Forum, September 19, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/09/why-africa-youth-key-development-potential/.
  9. Ugwueze, Michael I. “The 2020 #EndSARS Protests in Nigeria: Understanding How Perception Influences Government Approach to Civil Uprising in a Dictatorial State.”Protest 4, no. 2 (2024): 177–206. https://doi.org/10.1163/2667372X-04020001.
  10. West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI).“The Nigerian Civic Space: The Journey So Far.” March 1, 2024. https://wacsi.org/the-nigerian-civic-space-the-journey-so-far/.
  11. “#EndSARS: Davido Presents Demands of Protesters to IGP.”YouTube, October 12, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjZjcZSVFEI.
  12. Human Rights Watch. “Kenya: Security Forces Abducted, Killed Protesters.” Human Rights Watch, November 6, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/06/kenya-security-forces-abducted-killed-protesters.
  13. Human Rights Watch. “Nigeria: A Year On, No Justice for #EndSARS Crackdown.” Human Rights Watch, October 19, 2021. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/19/nigeria-year-no-justice-endsars-crackdown.
  14. Human Rights Watch. “Kenya: Events of 2024.” World Report 2025. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/kenya.
  15. “The Nigerian Civic Space: The Journey So Far.” West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), March 1, 2024. https://wacsi.org/the-nigerian-civic-space-the-journey-so-far/.
  16. “#EndSARS: Davido Presents Demands of Protesters to IGP.” YouTube, October 12, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjZjcZSVFEI.
  17. Ibid.