To end SARS or start a revolution? Class contradictions of youth within the #EndSARS rebellion

Abstract

Years after the #EndSARS movement rocked Nigeria and the world in October 2020, barely an ember of the rebellion has survived. While many scholars and activists position #EndSARS as a youth movement and formative political expression of the “Sòrò Sókè” generation, in this article, we argue that the #EndSARS rebellion can be meaningfully interpreted in terms of class struggle. The rebellion and its aftereffects reveal entrenched class divisions among young people that masked critical differences—in ideology, experiences, and interests—among emergent classes of poor, working-class, and professional, middle-class youth, which ultimately contributed to the movement's co-optation and fragmentation. The idea that #EndSARS was a generational struggle or that youth functioned within it as a unified social category fails to interrogate ways that the youth remains divided along class and ideological commitments. These tensions can be observed in the narrow reformist versus broader revolutionary demands articulated within the protests, the varying strategies and tactics employed during street actions, the conceptualisations and response to state violence, and the relative disposability of poor youth. In disentangling class contradictions, we hope to provide a sober reflection on the possibilities for deepening class collaborations and building stronger movements that can capture the revolutionary potential of Nigeria's social realities.