Digital Activism and Youth-Led Social Movements: A Mixed-Methods Study of Twitter’s Role in the #EndSARS Protests and Police Reform Advocacy in Nigeria

Abstract

This mixed-methods study examined Twitter's role in the #EndSARS movement, a youth-led protest campaign against police brutality in Nigeria that culminated in the October 2020 Lekki Toll Gate shooting. Employing an embedded design with quantitative network and sentiment analysis as the primary strand and qualitative interviews as the explanatory strand, the study investigated patterns of digital mobilisation, activist perceptions of platform affordances and constraints, and the translation of online advocacy into offline policy outcomes. Quantitative analysis of approximately 5,000 tweets collected via the Twitter API from October 1 to November 30, 2020, revealed a decentralised network architecture characterised by low density (0.00007) and high modularity (0.68), with dramatic sentiment shifts following the Lekki shooting, during which negative tweets peaked at 89%. Semi-structured interviews with 23 youth activists demonstrated that while 96% endorsed Twitter's speed and reach as critical mobilising affordances, 83% reported surveillance concerns and 74% perceived algorithmic suppression. Despite achieving rapid mobilisation and unprecedented global awareness, the movement experienced limited institutional success, with youth activists reporting low efficacy for police prosecutions (91%) and sustained policy change (78%), while the Nigerian government responded with a seven-month Twitter ban in June 2021. These findings extend connective action theory by demonstrating its applicability in repressive African contexts while revealing a fundamental tension between digital visibility and durable institutional accountability. The study contributes to scholarship on digital activism and social movements by illuminating both the transformative potential and structural limitations of social media platforms as sites of political contestation in fragile democracies.