Nigeria Needs a New Progressive Movement

Nigeria needs a new progressive movement; one that is not domain-constrained and disuniting like the Izala Society and Christian Social Movement of Nigeria, not extremist and exclusionary like Boko Haram, not tactically constrained like SERAP, not discrete like the End Bad Governance protest movement, not ideologically constrained like the Obidient movement, and not diachronically and synchronically constrained like Nkrumahism.

On 1 August 2024, Nigerians launched the #EndBadGovernance protests, marking the third major spate of protests we have experienced since the return to de jure democracy in 1999. Protests, however, have been only one of many forms of perceived acts of progressivism that several groups and social movements have undertaken in Nigeria since independence. Given the scale and depth of Nigeria’s governance and socio-political challenges, these many movements have been limited in the scale and depth of positive impact they have had.

What Nigeria needs is a progressive social movement that is...