Riots erupt across Africa as angry youths express their frustration
Recently, on the continent of Africa, various degrees of riots have erupted as angry African youths expressed their frustration over lack of prospect.
In Kenya last few days, tens of thousands of Kenyan youths had taken to the streets to demonstrate against police brutality and made a ‘SOS’ call, requesting the resignation of the country’s prime minister.
Riots Erupt Across Africa
In the wake of things, the Kenya police force responded with violence, teargas and water cannon in a bid to sway or quieten down the angry youth’s grievances, and as a result, a minimum of 16 people were reportedly killed, with hundreds wounded.
The refusal of the media house to refrain from covering the unrest, they were disconnected off air as an effort to stop the Kenyans viewing the images of the unrest and police brutality, but it failed, as the footage of police officers dressed in riot gear hitting protesters went viral on social media.
Similar upheaval was experienced in Nigeria, in 2020, where the angry youths protested against police brutality and extortion, tagged, ‘End SARS, with many lives─police and masses─lost and properties worth billions were destroyed in the unrest.
Other African countries are also witnessing same unrest. We can recall that last year, Senegalese took to the street to demonstrate against a legislation to postpone an election.
Mozambicans protested against an election widely considered rigged and malpractised, and Ghanaians also took to the streets to demonstrate against the unjust removal of their chief justice.
Last week’s rally in Togo was against the Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe, who has been in power for two decades.
Africa is developing, well-educated and technologically advanced Gen Z is at the fore of agitation, airing their distaste at entrenched, mostly corrupt and old ruling elites. Weirdest thing about this movement is ‘is it leaderless’, but propelled by social media platforms like TikTok, X and Facebook.
Riots Erupt Across Africa
“There’s no person behind it, there’s no structure that we answer to,” said Bridget Muthio, a 23-year-old law student in Nairobi.
“It’s just people brought together by a common pain, people who want better for each other and want to fight together.”
Metropolitan demonstrations are barely new, as we can recall that Ethiopian students were instrumental to dethronement of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, before their planned revolution was hijacked by communist military personnel,
Two years later, black South African students fuelled a series of unrests against the apartheid. In 2019, Sudanese shrugged off the oppressive administration of President Omar al-Bashir. Their upheaval was also truncated by a coup, degenerating into a devastating war.
The difference in the wave is now that increasing numbers of young Africans mobilise and organise online.
According to Acled (Armed Conflict Location and Extent Data), last year, 11,349 protests were recorded across Africa, compared to the estimated record of 317 in 2004, according to
Among these agitating youths, unemployment is the cause of their grievance. With a median age of 19, Africa is believed to be youngest continent on earth. Estimated 450 million African youths are expected to ender workforce in the coming decade, 70% rise.
Riots Erupt Across Africa
However, there are inadequate jobs for this growing number of youths. Almost 75% of African youths say it is very difficult to get a job, citing corrupt practices by the leaders as the major impediment.
In South Africa, a country where 60% of 15-24 year-olds cannot gain employment, recently, one million people applied for 10,000 positions in SA police, which have left many with no other option but to find a living in menial position as labourers, hawkers and cab drivers.
“This is about a lack of opportunity. There’s a wave of young people emerging with higher education, and they find it almost impossible to get jobs,” says Edward Paice, author of Youthquake, a book on African demography.
“There is a mounting sense of not just disappointment, but anger.”
In addition to this, are exorbitant cost of living, crippling public services and poor governance. Looking into the last week’s Kenyan protest, we will see that it was staged to commemorate the deaths of 60 people at similar demonstration a year ago.
These protests have been fuelled by proposed hike in tax which would have heighten the price of bread, phone bills and nappies. While still on deliberation, an MP fuelled a social media wave by exhibiting a flint of luxury cars on TikTok, and the users claimed, in rage, that they were more than what his official salary could fetch.
Riots Erupt Across Africa
‘It’s people brought together by a common pain, who want better… We are fighting for a system that works for us’
In the statement of Kenya’s Interior secretary, Kipchumba Murkomen, described the demonstrators as “anarchists” and “terrorists” with a bid to stage a coup. But Muthio objected this: “We’re fighting for a system that works for us, as the young people of Kenya,” she says.
“That’s what this is about.”
It’s a sense of grievance shared by young people across the continent.
“Governments are not listening to their young people,” says Wilker Dias, the 29-year-old director of Plataforma Decide, a civil society in Mozambique, where the Frelimo liberation movement has ruled since independence in 1975.
“They just make the decisions without any consultation, so young people are going into the streets─it’s the only way to get their voices heard.”
Last year in Senegal, 45-year-old opposition candidate, who spent most of his electioneering campaign in prison, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was elected. Howbeit, on the other hand, military personnel, elsewhere, have taken the advantage of mass distastes at government to stage coups, in African countries like Burkina Faso and Gabon.
Riots Erupt Across Africa
Also in Nigeria, a few months ago, young Nigerians took to the streets to protest hardship and hunger in the country. A demonstration which almost saw the incumbent government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu overthrown with the angry youths waving flags of other nations like Russia, the United States, among others.
Paice notes that no African leader has been able to come up with a remedy to tolerate the increasing number of young people into their economies. As this result, he suggests the escalation of the protest.
“This is going to be one of the most salient developments in most African countries in the next two to three decades, and it is going to challenge governments to the core,” Paice says.
“If I can permit myself a little bit of optimism, one is going to see the emergence of new political dispensations.”
Will African leaders learn to accommodate the grievances of the angry youths and accede to their demands or remain adamant and continue in their corrupt and self-seeking way to the detriment of their nations.
“Poverty is the Parent of revolution and crime. If there is no middle-class, the poor greatly exceed in number, trouble arises and the state soon comes to an end,” Aristotle
Riots Erupt Across Africa
