“Welcome to the digital age” should be the automated voice at the receiving end of the #EndSARS customer care helpline.
The #EndSARS protests raging nationwide owes its popularity to social media. Prior to this time we now live in, it would have been easy to dismiss social media as a crucial tool for national development. It was and still remains the cool zone for meet and greet, the timeline where we vent, share cool pictures, shout down opposers of our various schools of thought, endure Donald Trump even if we are not directly related to him and make connections for introverts who in ‘real-life’ would not make a sentence without difficulty, but little did we know that it would become the people’s parliament although some claimed to have seen it coming.
The #EndSARS protest which has become quite the movement in Nigeria and has been recognised by Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Google Africa, Amnesty International, CNN, BBC and Aljazeera has become so because of social media. Some might argue that Twitter was the most viable of the options available (I mean #EndSARS now has its own emoji which is no mean feat by the way), but our WhatsApp also contributed to sending broadcast messages to older generations (the baby boomers). From the organisation of the first protest following the viral video of a young man being shot at in Ugheli Delta state by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), to the ensuing protests and demonstrations by young Nigerians, social media has proved essential.
There is an important part of this protest which is tagged the e-protest. This is a protest coordinated on Twitter characterised by tweeting the hashtags in creative ways and retweeting all day long to make sure #EndSARS stays number one on the trending list worldwide. This e-protest conducted by e-protesters has created international awareness for the movement.
Celebrities and ordinary citizens of various nationalities have shown support by tweeting the hashtags, pictures have circulated round the world about what is going on in Nigeria. The Wikipedia page for #EndSARS reads, “The trending video caused public outcry on social media, especially Twitter.” In the first few days into the popularity of the hashtag, popular local media houses refused to air or publish anything on the protest until CNN reported it giving the movement substantial credibility, but it was credible to young tweeps (Twitter users).
On Saturday, Jimoh Isiaq, a student of Ladoke Akintola University died from live bullets shot at protesters in Ogbomoso, Oyo State by the Police and it went viral on Twitter making the protests more urgent and protesters grew in number at various protest locations around Nigeria. Twitter alongside other social media applications has been the mobilisation headquarters and information tower for this protest. By Tuesday, October 13, Nigerian tweeps expressed fear that the Nigerian government who so far seemed incapable of disrupting the protests would shut down the Internet to discourage youngsters and almost immediately VPN applications were suggested, solutions were formalised.
On Thursday, October 17, just before the #EndSARS emoji was uploaded on Twitter, it seemed the application crashed, some suspected the government had finally locked the Internet, it turns out motivation was about to be top flank. #EndSARS has seen more tweets and retweets than #BlackLivesMatter which before October 2020 was the biggest yet, hence the addition of its own emoji.
Now it seems as if any problem in the protest will automatically get a solution on Twitter. @aprokodoctor, a popular Nigerian tweep, insists though that should the Internet be shut down, protests will be live on every street in Nigeria. It is a rather bold statement but we might just be on a rollercoaster that only goes up. Now when people ask, “Who has social media helped? We know exactly the answer. It helped us the Nigerian youths.