In January 2012, after the refusal of the Nigerian government, under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan, to reverse its unpopular decision to increase the price of petrol, protests erupted in Nigeria. This organised protests began with the title of ‘’Occupy Nigeria’’, and gained traction across the length and breadth of Nigeria. This paper intends to retrospectively explore this event within the context of protest in Nigerian history. The ‘’Occupy Nigeria’’ movement is conceived of as embodying a watershed moment in social activism in Nigeria. To advance this viewpoint, this paper creates linkages between different episodes in the sequence of events that occurred during the duration of the protests.
I argue that ‘’Occupy Nigeria’’ set a precedent as the first of its kind open the public space in Nigeria to the multifaceted modes of protest. By combining interviews with protesters, archival materials and a critical analysis of the social discourse of the period, I propose an understanding of ‘’Occupy Nigeria’’ as being the first protest movement in Nigeria to cut across ethno-religious and social class lines. This paper also concerns itself with the aesthetics of protest, and how social media particularly influenced the mobilisation of support for ‘’Occupy Nigeria’’.