Published In
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Subjects
Nigeria, Feminism, Police Brutality, Activism, Social justice
Abstract
The 2020 #EndSARS protest—a movement against police brutality and state violence in Nigeria—is an excellent locale for the historical study of African women’s activism and contributions to social movements. Young Nigerian women actively spearheaded this movement. Employing oral history methods, social media, and other primary sources, I place these women at the center of the narratives surrounding the #EndSARS protest. Their exceptional leadership and coordination contributed to the success of the most extensive youth-led protests in Nigeria’s contemporary history. In locating their individual and collective activism, I argue that history provided the roadmap for how they did effective activism since the protesters were not just reenacting age-old strategies of dissent but were also consciously invoking history as they did so. The invocation of history was one strategy for building their feminist coalition, besides hashtag activism and on-the- ground resistance and support. I also argue that the radical consciousness of Nigerian women during the protest impacted the meaning of Nigerian feminism and feminist leadership in movements against state violence. The movement also reflected an Afrofuturistic society, which underscored citizens’ desperation for a better and more just society. Historicizing Nigerian women’s voices contributes to the “making memory” of their lived experiences during that momentous period. By reframing the lens of the #EndSARS protest to feminist leadership, I make important interventions in Black/African feminist literature, feminist theories of leadership, and to scholarship that engages with the long history of women’s activism and mobilizations in Nigeria.
Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
DOI
10.1353/fro.2024.a952260
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43122
Citation Details
Alozie, B. (2024). “The Feminist Coven Did It”: Nigerian Women’s Feminist Leadership and Coalition Against Police Brutality during the 2020 #EndSARS Protests. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 45(3), 152–183. https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2024.a952260
Included in
African Languages and Societies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social Justice Commons
