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A Giant on Unsteady Ground
For decades, Nigeria has been regarded as the giant of Africa, endowed with enormous economic potential, vast natural resources, demographic advantage, and a historical sense of pan-African responsibility. As the continent’s largest and most populous economy, Nigeria occupies a unique and complex geopolitical position within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the broader continental African framework.
Yet this regional and continental leadership has come under increasing scrutiny recently. Mounting domestic challenges, including security threats, economic volatility, and governance shortcomings, have undermined Nigeria’s ability to exert sustained influence across West Africa and Africa. At a time when the continent faces tectonic shifts—from rising military coups and democratic reversals to external power competition and regional integration—Nigeria’s geopolitical role is at a crossroads.
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This report unpacks Nigeria’s evolving position within ECOWAS and continental Africa, exploring its historical leadership, current limitations, and the opportunities it must seize to reassert itself as a stabilising and strategic force in Africa’s future.
1. Historical Leadership in West Africa and ECOWAS
Founded in 1975, ECOWAS was conceived as a regional bloc to promote economic integration, peace, and collective development among its 15 member states. From the beginning, Nigeria was outsized in shaping ECOWAS’s institutional architecture and direction.
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Economic Dominance
With over 220 million people, Nigeria accounts for over 50% of ECOWAS’s population and contributes roughly two-thirds of the region’s GDP. Its oil exports, Nollywood film industry, banking sector, and consumer markets shape regional economic trends.
Security Interventions
Nigeria has historically served as a regional peacekeeper, leading or heavily supporting ECOWAS military interventions in Liberia (ECOMOG, 1990), Sierra Leone (1997), Guinea-Bissau, and The Gambia (2017). Its military muscle and diplomatic reach earned it a reputation as West Africa’s security anchor.
Normative Leadership
Nigeria was instrumental in championing the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance (2001) and other frameworks promoting free movement, political stability, and regional integration.
II. Nigeria’s Continental Position: Pan-African Leadership and Its Limits
Beyond West Africa, Nigeria has aspired to continental leadership, driven by its commitment to the African Union (AU), peacekeeping missions, and Pan-African diplomacy.
Nigeria contributed to AU-led missions in Darfur (AMIS), Mali, and Somalia. It hosted and funded critical AU agencies like the African First Ladies Peace Mission and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency. As a vocal supporter of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Nigeria played a role in negotiating the agreement. However, it hesitated before signing, underscoring tensions between its domestic interests and continental aspirations.
III. Current Challenges Undermining Nigeria’s Geopolitical Role
Despite its legacy, Nigeria’s geopolitical standing is under pressure from internal weaknesses and external shifts in African dynamics. Insecurity in Nigeria—ranging from Boko Haram in the northeast, banditry in the northwest, separatist agitations in the southeast, and farmer-herder conflicts—has significantly weakened its domestic governance capacity. Once a pillar of regional stability, the Nigerian military is stretched thin by internal deployments.
Economic Underperformance
Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy has struggled with recession, inflation, forex instability, and youth unemployment. With over 40% of its population living below the poverty line, Nigeria’s ability to fund regional initiatives or serve as an economic model is increasingly questioned.
Coup Crisis in West Africa
The resurgence of military coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger has tested ECOWAS’s cohesion and Nigeria’s leadership. The withdrawal of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from ECOWAS in 2024—amid claims that Nigeria and France dominate the bloc—marks a significant regional fracture. Although Nigeria led ECOWAS’s condemnation of the coups and supported sanctions, its diplomatic leverage proved insufficient to prevent fragmentation. For many, this raises concerns about the declining legitimacy of Nigeria-led ECOWAS diplomacy.
IV. External Geopolitics and the Rise of Competing Influences
As Nigeria’s grip weakens, external actors increasingly influence West Africa and Africa’s broader political economy. Russia has stepped up its military and propaganda presence, especially in coup-affected states via the Wagner Group. China dominates infrastructure finance, resource extraction, and digital technology deployment. The Gulf States and Turkey are becoming key diplomatic and investment players. France, historically influential in francophone West Africa, is facing a rapid decline in popularity. Nigeria finds itself in a multipolar African geopolitical arena, but lacks a coherent grand strategy to assert itself amid these dynamics.
V. Opportunities to Reclaim Strategic Leadership
Despite its limitations, Nigeria retains the strategic potential to lead ECOWAS and Africa into a new era of cooperative development and political stability. But this requires visionary recalibration.
Rebuilding ECOWAS Unity Through Inclusive Diplomacy
Nigeria must pivot from coercive diplomacy to inclusive dialogue. Engaging military regimes—without legitimising coups—through track-II diplomacy, confidence-building measures, and conditional reintegration pathways can help reweave ECOWAS.
Driving Regional Economic Integration
Nigeria’s full and active implementation of AfCFTA can transform it into a continental trade hub. Industrial policies must be aligned with regional value chains in agro-processing, digital services, and green manufacturing.
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Prioritising Security Sector Reform
To lead regional security, Nigeria must modernise and professionalise its armed forces, reduce internal deployment pressures, and invest in cross-border intelligence coordination with ECOWAS states. Strategic Use of Soft Power-Nigeria’s creative industries, diaspora networks, fintech ecosystem, and education sector offer immense soft power potential. Nollywood, Afrobeats, and mobile payment innovations are cultural and technological exports that can amplify its continental influence-developing a coherent geopolitical doctrine-Nigeria needs a formal national security and foreign policy strategy that outlines its regional goals, multilateral engagement priorities, and position on emerging global issues—climate change, digital governance, and great power competition.
A Nation at the Helm or Adrift?
Nigeria’s geopolitical destiny is not inevitable but a matter of strategic choice. The country stands at the helm of a fractured West Africa and the heart of a continent in transition. Its historical responsibility, demographic weight, and economic scale confer upon it a privileged and precarious role. To reclaim its position, Nigeria must confront its internal governance challenges, redefine its regional purpose, and embrace a new form of leadership rooted in humility, shared prosperity, and institutional renewal.
The road ahead is complex. But in a continent hungry for leadership and unity, Nigeria’s relevance remains not just a question of capacity, but of vision and will.
Victor Liman is a trade policy advisor and institutional reform strategist. He previously served as Nigeria’s Chief Trade Negotiator and Acting Director-General of the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations. He was also the Head and Trade Commissioner of the Nigeria Regional Investment and Trade Office in Shanghai, China, with a concurrent mandate to oversee the South Asian countries’ trade relations with Nigeria. [email protected] (+234 90300 5257)
