Since the emergence of ICT or digitalization in our contemporary world, especially in Africa, the use of social media as channels of communication has found expressions in political, economic, social, and business aspects of human dealings and engagements. This development calls for rigorous academic debate regarding the effectiveness of social media platforms as tools that citizens can use to influence government policies and decision making. The paper examines the likely outcomes of the protests regarding the change in government policy, reactions and proposed policies geared towards more regulation of social media and the implications on future social media. Drawing critical insights from the efforts of Nigerian youth on the strategic use of social media, this study engages secondary sources to understand and explain strategies and mechanisms to influence government policies and decision making via practical usage of ICT and social media in the age of digitalization. The paper concludes that the style of the #EndSars protest may inspire other youth-led social media protests in other parts of the world. Questions also arise as to the nature and the character of the Nigerian state that led to the abrupt end of the protests.

Because of the political and religious disagreements in Mali, the protection of the country's world heritage sites (WHSs) has been a constant agenda of state-parties to the World Heritage Convention (WHC). To avoid irreversible damage and loss of these valuable national heritages, appropriate action is needed at every level for their conservation and preservation. Significant attention has been directed at understanding the relevance and benefits of WHSs to the economic sector specifically, but, there has been relatively little academic and policy research on the destruction and looting of WHSs especially in Timbuktu, Mali. This is the gap this study intends to fill. This calls for serious questions regarding what precipitated and led to the destruction of Timbuktu's cultural heritage. What is the significance of Timbuktu's WHSs to the Malians? How should government authorities respond to the destruction of the sites? Finally, against the background of the destruction of the Timbuktu WHSs, how can the WHSs be preserved and protected? This study critically interrogates insurgents' attacks on the WHSs, with the motive of developing a sustainable template suitable for forestalling potential attacks by Islamic/jihadist insurgents, or any other insurgents for that matter, in other locations in Mali, using the attacks in Timbuktu as a case study.

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