Political protest seeks corporate sponsor: Rethinking Big Tech, youth agency, and the reordering of power from Nigeria

This article examines how Big Tech became absorbed into local moral and political frameworks in Nigeria, Africa’s largest digital market, where the majority of the population is under 20. It maps Nigeria’s evolving platform regulations and situates recent state interventions within broader socio-economic tensions, culminating in the youth protest movement #EndSARS. The article traces how #EndSARS emerged from the entertainment industry and carried forward the organizational logic and political ethos of the globally connected, youth-led Afrobeats industry. It shows how the digital platforms that recently enabled Afrobeats’ rise not only served as infrastructure for organization and amplification, but were also called upon to actively provide corporate support against government oppression. Corporate sponsorship of the protest was simultaneously an aspirational horizon for protesters, a limited material reality through tech companies’ involvement, and a perceived threat for the political establishment. With this case study, the article intervenes in the academic consensus that conceptualizes Big Tech companies as engines of neocolonialism to draw attention to the ambivalence of emic reinterpretations, especially in contexts of generational and ethno-regional tensions. It underscores the need to understand the local dynamics that shape platforms’ symbolic power, as they can pose obstacles to effective regulation.