Re/Reading Spectacles: Historicizing the Occupy Nigeria Movement

Abstract

Following the momentum of the Arab Spring, the Occupy Nigeria movement of January 2011 emerged as the biggest political protest in Nigeria’s recent history. The movement was significant not just in terms of the geographical spread of the protests, but also in the number and diversity— particularly ethnic and class diversity— of Nigerians who subscribed to its cause. Their demands ranged in scale from a reversal of fuel prices to holistic reforms in governance. Importantly, one of the distinct ways through which these demands were articulated was through performances enacted on and around the protest grounds. This essay argues that performative expressions of ethnicity and class amplified the popular appeal of the protests while simultaneously complicating the historization of the brief struggle. I offer that “ordinary” Nigerians’ deployment of spectacle need be understood as important indices in articulating a subaltern historiography of the Occupy Nigeria movement. Taking into account the unique interplay of class and ethnicity in the development (and dissolution) of the movement, this essay challenges the dominant impulse to historicize popular struggles from the viewpoint of the privileged class, while eliding the input and aspirations of the majority of social actors that actively shape the outlook of these movements. I employ a close reading of some of the performances enacted as part of the protests. My paper concludes by offering one of such productive methodologies for [re]reading the protests.

Keywords: Occupy Nigeria, Popular Movements, Subaltern Theory, Performance, Historiography