AbstractThe concept of revolution conceptually objectifies the impotent socio‐economic and political desires and preferences of human beings against powerful and constricting social formations. It conjures the pictures of possibilities. It is not surprising that the violent happenings in the Middle East have been quickly dubbed “revolutions” by scholars and the Western media. This essay presents a consequentialist argument that deploys Arendt's freedom argument to interrogate a revolution in terms of the outcomes the revolution presents the people with regard to the expansion of their capacities. Conceptually, the concept of revolution is a receding philosophical horizon especially in a context of shifting political and personal allegiances and ideologies defined by the Middle East which eventually conditioned the outcome of the Arab Spring. The minimal justification for a revolution is to transcend the existing order which constrains freedom and democratic empowerment. This essay argues that, despite its vaunted popularity, the Arab Spring was a series of uprisings that were undermined by the freedom argument. The essay however critically interrogates the larger question of what the Arab Spring portends for West Africa in terms of the understanding of freedom and how that becomes the first condition for a liberated citizenry. In the first part of the essay, I outline the theoretical framework that makes the question of a revolution possible. And this concerns the specific formation of the modern state and its monopoly of the use of force. In the second part, I interrogate the Arab Spring, which has been hailed as a contemporary “revolution,” and the implications of that critique for the understanding of politics in West Africa.