Deepening Nigeria–US military cooperation may strengthen counterterrorism capacity, but containing Sahel instability ultimately hinges on governance reform, political will, and Abuja’s ability to safeguard its strategic autonomy
In mid-February 2026, 200 US military personnel arrived in Nigeria to provide counterterrorism training, intelligence support, and technical assistance to Nigerian forces battling militant groups. This expanded military cooperation follows coordinated US airstrikes on Christmas Day 2025 targeting Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in Sokoto State, marking the first acknowledged US combat action inside Nigeria. These developments have sparked debate over whether the Nigeria–US partnership can effectively contain domestic insecurity in Nigeria and prevent its spillover into the broader Sahel, or whether it risks deepening instability across the region.
Nigeria must bargain hard to ensure its interests are not subordinated to Washington's broader strategic calculations.
The answer is complex and unlikely to fully resolve the crisis, but strategically significant. Nigeria retains substantial agency and can leverage this partnership to secure advanced capabilities and political legitimacy. However, given the transactional nature of the current US administration's foreign policy, Nigeria must bargain hard to ensure its interests are not subordinated to Washington's broader strategic calculations. With presidential elections scheduled for February 2027, President Bola Tinubu stands to gain politically from this partnership but only if it delivers visible security improvements without compromising sovereignty.
Nigeria's security landscape is a mix of overlapping crises. In the northeast, Boko Haram and ISWAP have waged an insurgency since 2009, resulting in over 2,000 deaths in 2025 alone. In the northwest and Middle Belt, rural banditry, kidnapping for ransom, and farmer–herder violence have created a diffuse conflict system that overwhelms local security forces and erodes state authority. ISWAP's operations span the Lake Chad Basin, linking Nigeria's insecurity directly to Niger, Chad, and Cameroon through small arms flows, refugee movements, and transnational criminal networks.
These assurances address domestic sensitivities about sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops, a lesson learned from the backlash against French military presence elsewhere in the Sahel.
For Abuja, the rationale for deepening cooperation with the US is clear. It can access advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, precision targeting support, and specialised training, which act as short-term stabilisation tools. Nigerian forces have struggled for years to contain insurgent violence despite numerical superiority and significant defence spending. The arrival of US intelligence analysts and military trainers, operating from three primary locations, including Maiduguri in the northeast, is designed to enhance operational planning and improve airstrike precision, a critical need given that several hundred civilian deaths have been attributed to inaccurate Nigerian counterterrorism operations. Crucially, Nigerian authorities have retained operational command, and US personnel are confined to "advisory and training capacity" with no direct combat role, according to Major General Samaila Uba of Nigeria's Defence Headquarters. These assurances address domestic sensitivities about sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops, a lesson learned from the backlash against French military presence elsewhere in the Sahel.
For the United States, Nigeria represents a strategic anchor in a region where previous security architectures have collapsed. The withdrawal or expulsion of French and European forces from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has created a vacuum that Russia's "Africa Corps" and associated contractors have rapidly filled. By deepening cooperation with Nigeria, Washington aims to preserve intelligence reach, maintain influence over regional counter-terrorism strategies, and protect broader economic and maritime interests, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea.
Yet the Trump administration's approach to Africa is fundamentally transactional, focused on short-term dealmaking, resource access, and quick security wins rather than long-term institution-building or governance reform. The 2025 US National Security Strategy frames Africa through what has been described as a lens of “resource imperialism,” prioritising critical mineral value chains and securitised supply routes over genuine developmental partnerships. Nigeria is valued not as a partner in regional stability but as a node in a reconfigured Western security posture, a distinction with consequences.
This transactional logic means Nigeria must actively negotiate to ensure the partnership serves Nigerian priorities rather than simply enabling US intelligence collection or projecting American power. Nigeria maintains relations with multiple external partners, including Russia and China, and has traditionally avoided exclusive alignment with any single power. This diversified approach provides leverage, but only if Abuja is willing to use it.
The 2025 US National Security Strategy frames Africa through what has been described as a lens of “resource imperialism,” prioritising critical mineral value chains and securitised supply routes over genuine developmental partnerships.
The broader Sahel context also reflects genuine anxieties about the region’s trajectory, as Nigeria's instability might trigger a broader regional war. In Burkina Faso alone, more than 8,000 people were killed in 2023, and over 6,100 Burkinabe were killed in the first nine months of 2024. Across the central Sahel, nearly 5 million people were forcibly displaced as of August 2024, marking a 25 percent increase since 2020. Nigeria is already embedded in this conflict system, with ISWAP operations linking its security dynamics directly to the Sahel.
Yet an "all-out war" in the sense of conventional interstate conflict remains, at present, a less probable scenario than the continued consolidation of a diffuse, transnational conflict system. Nigeria retains a functioning central government, a sizeable army, and strong incentives to avoid interstate confrontation. Sahelian juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are focused primarily on regime survival rather than external expansion, even as their rhetoric and mutual defence pacts increase the risk of miscalculation. External powers, including the US, appear more interested in influence and resource access than in encouraging open interstate war. The more plausible trajectory is deepening transnational violence marked by insurgency, cross-border raids, proxy relationships, and militarised borders. In such a system, Nigeria's internal stability and the nature of its external partnerships will significantly shape and be shaped by developments across the Sahel, even without a formally declared regional war.
The timing of this expanded US partnership is politically significant. Nigeria's presidential and National Assembly elections are set for 20 February 2027, with campaigns commencing in November 2026. President Tinubu, who assumed office in May 2023, faces mounting pressure to demonstrate progress on security, economic stability, and governance reform. Visible security improvements in the northeast and northwest, enabled by US support, could bolster Tinubu's re-election prospects by demonstrating effective leadership and international credibility.
However, the political upside is contingent on tangible results delivered before the campaign period. If the partnership fails to reduce violence or, worse, results in civilian casualties through poorly coordinated operations, it could become a political liability. Moreover, any perception that Nigeria has become overly dependent on Washington could energise nationalist opposition and undermine Tinubu's standing domestically.
Visible security improvements in the northeast and northwest, enabled by US support, could bolster Tinubu's re-election prospects by demonstrating effective leadership and international credibility.
The intensification of Nigeria–US military cooperation occurs at a moment when Russia is deepening its footprint across the Sahel and jihadist violence is reaching new highs. Will this partnership resolve the crisis? Not entirely. Nigeria's security challenges are rooted in governance failures, economic marginalisation, and social grievances that external military support alone cannot address. A successful counter-insurgency strategy requires pairing advanced ISR capabilities with inclusive governance, accountable security forces, and development in marginalised regions.
The partnership can deliver enhanced operational capacity, intelligence reach, and political legitimacy only if Nigeria negotiates effectively and maintains strategic autonomy. Given the transactional character of Trump-era US foreign policy, Abuja must ensure that cooperation serves Nigerian priorities rather than simply facilitating American intelligence access or resource interests. Nigeria possesses the agency, diplomatic experience, and bargaining power to shape outcomes, but only if it chooses to exercise that leverage. In this constrained and contested space, Nigeria's challenge is to transform deepening military cooperation into a tool for strategic autonomy rather than a pathway back to subordination.
Shrestha Medhi is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Shrestha Medhi is a Research Intern at the Strategic Studies Programme at ORF, working on security, political, and socio-cultural dynamics across the African continent. ...
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