Before the research, before the global academic framing, and before his name began to circulate in policy and political circles, Ibrahim Bangura had already carved a reputation that straddles scholarship, governance, and frontline political ambition.
A senior lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, Bangura’s intellectual work has long focused on fragile states, youth mobilisation, and post conflict reconstruction. His career extends beyond the classroom into international policy spaces, where he has worked on peacebuilding initiatives across Africa and engaged institutions concerned with governance and stability.
His academic pedigree is matched by global recognition. In 2024, he was awarded an Africa Oxford Visiting Fellowship, a distinction that placed him within one of the world’s most influential intellectual ecosystems and expanded his reach within global research and policy networks.
Yet Bangura is not confined to academia. He is also a central figure in Sierra Leone’s evolving political landscape. A leading flag bearer aspirant within the All People’s Congress, he has positioned himself as a contender for the party’s leadership ahead of the 2028 general elections, actively engaging party stakeholders and calling for unity, reform, and generational renewal.
His campaign messaging reflects a broader philosophy that mirrors the themes of his academic work. He has consistently emphasised the need for unity, inclusion, and national reconstruction, framing his political vision around healing and collective progress.
It is from this rare intersection of scholarship and political ambition that Bangura’s study on Madagascar emerges not as detached observation, but as informed analysis shaped by lived engagement with the very forces he examines.
And it is precisely this dual identity that gives his work unusual weight.
In a study that reads less like distant academic reflection and more like a frontline chronicle of rupture, Bangura lays bare the anatomy of a political earthquake in Madagascar one driven not by generals, not by political parties, but by a generation that refused to remain invisible.
Published in the International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, his work does not merely recount the 2025 uprising. It interrogates it. It situates it within history. It dissects its causes, its contradictions, and its consequences. And perhaps most importantly, it asks a question that lingers long after the protests have faded from the streets what happens when a generation that can topple power is still denied a seat at the table.
The answers are neither simple nor comforting.
The events that would eventually force President Andry Rajoelina from power did not begin with grand ideology or coordinated revolution. They began, as many modern uprisings do, with something more immediate and more visceral the daily indignities of survival.
Water stopped running. Electricity became unreliable. In a capital city already strained by unemployment and inequality, these failures were not seen as technical lapses but as evidence of a state that had receded from the lives of its citizens. For young people in particular, the sense of abandonment was acute.
Bangura captures this sentiment with striking clarity, writing that the protests were rooted in immediate material grievances that quickly expanded into broader questions of legitimacy, identity, and belonging. What began as frustration over basic services evolved into a challenge to the very idea of governance.
The crisis quickly spread nationwide, destabilising the government, he notes, pointing to how local grievances were rapidly transformed into a national confrontation between a disillusioned generation and an unresponsive state.
The speed of this transformation is one of the defining features of the 2025 uprising. Within weeks, protests that began in Antananarivo had spread across the country. Crowds grew. Messages travelled. Anger intensified.
And then came the response.
The state, as Bangura documents, fell back on a familiar script. Curfews were imposed. Security forces were deployed. Protesters were confronted with force. The result was deadly. At least 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured.
But repression, in this instance, did not restore order. It accelerated collapse.
Bangura is unequivocal in his assessment of this dynamic. State violence, he argues, often serves to legitimise rather than delegitimise protests, transforming dissent into a moral cause that resonates far beyond its initial base.
Images of brutality circulated widely. Videos spread across social media platforms. Narratives once controlled by the state were contested in real time by those on the streets. In this new information environment, authority could no longer rely on silence or suppression.
The decentralised nature of digital activism nullified the need for individuals to gather in a specific physical location. Rather, they could quickly and widely spread messages to mobilise their peers.
This was not merely a protest. It was a network.
Unlike earlier movements shaped by hierarchical leadership, the 2025 uprising operated through fluid, adaptive structures. Coordination was leaderless. Messaging was collective. Strategy evolved in response to state action.
Even when authorities attempted to restrict internet access, the movement adapted. Alternative platforms were used. Diaspora networks amplified voices. Communication persisted.
It was a revolution beyond boundaries, one activist recalled, capturing the transnational dimension of what was unfolding.
Yet for all its modern characteristics, the uprising also followed a deeply familiar trajectory.
As protests intensified and the state faltered, the military intervened.
President Rajoelina fled the country. A transitional arrangement was announced. Colonel Michaël Randrianirina was installed as head of state. Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo was named prime minister.
For some, this marked the end of a crisis. For many of the young people who had filled the streets, it marked the beginning of a new betrayal.
Bangura’s study is particularly sharp in its critique of what follows moments of rupture. Again and again, he shows, youth movements in Madagascar have played decisive roles in forcing political change. And again and again, they have been excluded from the processes that shape what comes next.
Youth activists criticised this move as non transparent and insufficiently consultative, he writes, noting that many saw the transition not as a victory but as a continuation of elite dominance under a different guise.
One activist’s words, captured in the research, cut to the heart of the matter Our revolution will not be hijacked Malagasy youth are watching and mobilising.
It is in this tension between power and participation that the deeper significance of the 2025 uprising emerges.
Bangura situates the protests within a long history of youth mobilisation in Madagascar, tracing patterns that stretch back decades. From the fall of regimes in 1972 and 1991 to the crisis of 2009, young people have repeatedly been at the forefront of political transformation.
And yet, despite their centrality, they remain structurally marginalised.
This contradiction, he suggests, is not accidental. It is embedded in the political system itself.
Although elite bargaining may provide short term stability, it does not address the root causes of unrest, Bangura writes. This persistent pattern has caused cyclical instability rather than ongoing reform.
The roots of this instability are deeply socioeconomic.
Madagascar remains one of the poorest countries in the world. More than three quarters of its population lives in poverty. For young people, the situation is particularly stark.
Education, once seen as a pathway to opportunity, no longer guarantees employment. Urban migration has intensified competition for limited jobs. Rural communities remain trapped in subsistence economies.
The result is what Bangura describes as a crisis of social reproduction, a condition in which young people are unable to achieve socially expected life paths despite sustained effort.
Relying on someone else is frustrating and makes us feel less than human, one youth activist told researchers. Our dignity and quality of life are consistently undermined.
This erosion of dignity is central to understanding the protests. They were not simply demands for better services. They were demands for recognition, inclusion, and respect.
Urban spaces played a critical role in translating these demands into action. Cities like Antananarivo became sites of convergence where diverse experiences of marginalisation coalesced into collective identity.
Public squares, university campuses, and communal spaces became arenas of resistance, enabling young people to transform private frustration into public action.
Culture amplified this process. Music, graffiti, slogans, and poetry became tools of mobilisation, creating a shared language that bound participants together.
At the same time, digital platforms extended the reach of these expressions, connecting local struggles to global narratives.
Bangura introduces the concept of a global imaginary to describe this phenomenon, defining it as a shared framework through which young people interpret their realities and imagine alternatives.
The global image of Gen Z mobilisation does not suggest rallying for a uniform ideology, he explains. Rather, it indicates a growing belief that corruption can be challenged, exclusion need not be permanent, and politics can be shaped.
This belief is both empowering and destabilising.
It empowers young people to act, to organise, to resist. But it also destabilises systems that rely on their disengagement.
The response of the state, therefore, becomes critical.
Bangura’s findings suggest that the Malagasy state has struggled to adapt. Its default approach remains one of repression followed by limited concession and elite negotiation.
The Malagasy political elites have never succeeded in understanding how best to engage their youth, one aid worker observed. They quickly resort to violence even when they can choose to engage their youth constructively.
This failure has consequences that extend beyond national borders.
Madagascar occupies a marginal position in the global economy, dependent on external aid and vulnerable to shocks. Political instability further complicates its international standing.
Yet youth mobilisation, Bangura argues, also presents an opportunity.
It shifts the focus of politics from elite competition to everyday governance. It challenges narratives of passivity. It opens the possibility of more inclusive and accountable systems.
Development partnerships that prioritise stability over inclusion risk reinforcing the dynamics that generate youth mobilisation, he warns.
The implication is clear. Without structural change, the cycle will continue.
Protests will emerge. Governments will fall. Transitions will occur. And young people will once again find themselves excluded from the outcomes they helped create.
The question, then, is not whether youth will continue to shape political futures. Bangura’s study makes it clear that they will.
The question is whether those futures will finally include them.