Let us not mince words.
The world order is fracturing, and for regions such as West Africa, this is not an abstract concern.
We are transitioning from a world in which we were often an afterthought to one in which we are actively instrumentalised.
The fundamental question is whether we will be actors in this new game or merely the arena where it is played out.
My central thesis, grounded in the data we analyse at SBM Intelligence, is that Nigeria, and by extension the Sahel, is structurally weak and therefore dangerously central to other people’s geopolitical calculations. Our internal crisis is a crisis of state legitimacy. It is the direct result of a state hollowed out by a political class that views governance as secondary to personal enrichment.
The chaos is not an accident; it has become a business model. When you have a population of young people with no hope, no job, and no future, you create a perfect recruitment pool for violence. This internal vacuum, quantified by our own Africa Country Instability Risk Index, which rates Nigeria in the “Critical” category, is what external powers are now manoeuvring to fill.
The recent events in our neighbour, the Republic of Benin, provide a stark case study. Last Sunday, a faction of soldiers attempted to overthrow President Patrice Talon. The Beninese government’s response was immediate and, notably, international. It formally requested military assistance from Nigeria, which swiftly deployed fighter jets to secure Benin’s airspace and launched precision airstrikes, while ground troops entered through the Sèmè border to help dislodge the coup plotters. Nigeria’s presidency hailed its armed forces as “defenders and protectors of constitutional order”, acting under the ECOWAS protocol.
However, this action cannot be separated from its political context and perception. The Communist Party of Benin (PCB) issued a scathing statement, condemning what it termed a “Franco-Nigerian intervention”. The party alleged the operation was coordinated with Paris and described it as “an insult and humiliation” and “a pure and simple transformation of Benin into a French colony“.
While this is the view of one political group, it resonates with a growing, pan-regional suspicion. It raises an inevitable question about strategic consistency: why does a military putsch in Benin warrant a rapid, kinetic multinational response under the banner of constitutional defence, while the slow-motion constitutional coups and democratic degradation in other regional capitals are met with silence or, at best, muted diplomatic concern?
This inconsistency is not just hypocrisy; it is a strategic liability. It entrenches the perception that Nigeria’s foreign policy, particularly within ECOWAS, is not an expression of principled regional leadership but is susceptible to acting as a proxy for other interests, historically those of France. When we are seen to move decisively against instability in a Francophone neighbour with close ties to Paris, but remain passive observers as constitutional norms are dismantled elsewhere for political convenience, our credibility as an honest broker evaporates.
It feeds the very narrative pushed by the military juntas in the Sahel, that ECOWAS is a tool of neo-colonial manipulation. This perception hardens fronts, closes doors to dialogue, and makes sustainable regional security cooperation impossible.
For Nigeria, the implications are dire. The government’s reaction to our multi-headed security crisis has been a masterclass in misdirection, prioritising kinetic force over meaningful governance. We stubbornly commit to a conventional military approach to an asymmetric war, stretching our forces thin while the insurgents adapt. This approach is not just failing; it is actively making things worse. As we focus on the “bandits,” we ignore the governance deficits that create them, ensuring the perpetual regeneration of violence.
We must also understand the domestic political drivers in the West. America’s recently published National Security Strategy mirrors the structural shifts where anti-immigration rhetoric and culture wars turn migrants into symbols for deeper anxieties. Policy towards our region becomes a tug-of-war between strategic necessity and these domestic incentives.
The U.S. strategy’s emphasis on “securing access to critical supply chains and materials” means it will act to secure those interests, with or without the consent of a fragile authority in Abuja that cannot project legitimate power within its own territories. A Nigerian state that cannot control its narrative or its territory will forever be at the mercy of these external stories.
The conclusion is inescapable. The new scramble is here, and it is focused. It will treat our crises as manageable events and our resources as strategic assets. Our profound weakness, as evidenced by our elite’s “winner-takes-all” mentality and a foreign policy that appears selectively vigorous, means we lack the sovereignty and moral authority to dictate terms.
We love “with immediate effect” solutions, but lack the systematic will for the complex rebuild. Blaming colonialism, while historically justified, is insufficient when our contemporary political class is so adept at self-enrichment at the public’s expense.
Our only path is the arduous, internal work of building a legitimate, functional state. This requires more than electoral rituals. It demands a fundamental reset, a devolution of power that makes governors accountable to their people rather than to federal allocations, and a drastic weakening of the over-mighty presidency that is the prize in our zero-sum politics.
Externally, we require a foreign policy that is consistently principled, not conveniently activated. Without this foundational legitimacy and consistency, no external partnership, whether with the West or the East, will be on our terms, and regional instability will remain a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The shifting geopolitical realities do not promise a new dawn for West Africa. They threaten a long twilight where we are arenas, not actors. The destination of our current path is not necessarily a dramatic collapse, but a slow, agonising descent into the kind of permanent, profitable chaos that mimics the failures of the DRC or Sudan. The world is choosing its battles. We must ensure, through ruthless internal reform and a reclaiming of our own agency, that we are not destined to be the battlefield.
- Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence
