Why Nigeria must study Russia’s Sahel experiment, By Rinu Oduala

Add us on Google

Nigeria has spent decades investing in regional stability, often at a high cost. A security model that fractures regional institutions undermines that investment. Nigeria should diversify security cooperation and refuse to let any one foreign actor dominate its defence system. Regional intelligence and border coordination should not depend on a single foreign pipeline. Domestic defence production and procurement integrity must be transparent enough so that politicians cannot hide behind “urgent security needs” to justify bad deals.

Russia is selling a ‘security now, ask questions later’ bargain across the Sahel. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, military juntas pushed out long-standing Western partners and leaned into Moscow’s muscle through Wagner, then its state-run successor, Africa Corps, as a shortcut out of chaos. Years later, the violence is worse. The civic space has shrunk, civilian protection has collapsed, leverage over national assets has quietly shifted outward, and these states have become more exposed and dependent. Nigeria must pay attention.

Join the Premium Times WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.

Open in WhatsApp

Battered by coups and jihadist violence, and worn down by Western partners who promised stability and delivered stalemate, states in the Sahel have traded autonomy for expedience. The mechanism is brutally efficient. A junta seizes power, triggering sanctions and Western isolation. Russia steps in with diplomatic cover and a narrative that rehabilitates the coup militants. Over time, the arrangement hardens with dependence on weapons, intelligence, and information flowing through a single gatekeeper. Then, payment begins to show up covertly in mining licenses or contracts signed beyond public view.

When Wagner arrived in Mali in 2021, the junta sold it as a ‘turning point’. But recently, Malian refugees who fled to the Mauritanian border and were interviewed by the Associated Press described Malian forces and Russia’s successor unit, the Africa Corps, as using scorched-earth campaigns, including killings, abductions, and sexual violence, with civilians trapped between jihadists and state-aligned forces in rural areas. Bloomberg, citing ACLED, reported that after Prigozhin’s death in 2023, violence involving Russian mercenaries in Mali increased by 81 per cent, alongside a 65 per cent increase in reported fatalities.

Burkina Faso follows a similar arc, but beyond uniforms and weapons, Russia’s growing footprint is also about extraction, mines, permits, and money. In 2025, Reuters reported that the Ibrahim Traore-led Burkinabè junta granted a new industrial mining license to Russia’s Nordgold, deepening ties with Moscow as the junta pivots away from traditional partners. Industry reporting has long shown how these arrangements work, with equity structures concentrating operator control, whereby the operator takes 90 per cent, and the state holds 10 per cent. Nordgold’s Taparko mine followed this structure.

These are not always “Russia owns the country” deals, but what “security-for-access” looks like in practice, where a government needs weapons, and a foreign patron needs leverage. Once a regime relies on a single external actor to stay in power, every decision bends toward keeping that pipeline open. In Niger, US and European forces withdrew, and Russia stepped in. The junta gained backing, but civilians did not gain safety. The Sahel is discovering the trap inside the deal: insecurity feeds dependency, and dependency feeds insecurity.

The regional fallout is spreading with ECOWAS’ fracture and the hardening of the isolation of the Alliance of Sahel States. Spillover violence now presses south, toward coastal West Africa. Nigeria is not the Sahel. It has larger institutions and a louder civil society. But the country also sits next to the Sahel’s fault lines, and with its own security challenges, it is a bigger target as Africa’s most populous country and one of the most contested information environments on the continent. The United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) 2024 data also shows enormous youth cohorts, especially between the ages of 10 and 24, as a major share of the population. That combination creates strength when managed well, but is vulnerable and volatile when mixed with influence operations, unemployment, weak institutions, and state failure.

That vulnerability has already been tested. In 2024, the Nigerian media reported that the Federal Ministry of Education’s website briefly promoted dubious job opportunities linked to Russia. The ministry later said the postings were unauthorised and removed them. The episode exposed a soft underbelly about how official platforms can be used to launder credibility.

Stay Ahead with Premium Times

Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting.

Add as a preferred source on Google

Supporters of deeper Russia cooperation will raise fair points by saying Western partners have failed and that “no-strings” support from Russia respects sovereignty. Western engagement often felt episodic and security-heavy, with thin development follow-through and selective outrage. But failure by one partner does not justify capture by another. ‘No strings’ is not the same as ‘no cost.’

Nigeria does not need to become anti-Russian to be strategic. But we must stop confusing “options” with “dependence.” A country can trade with Russia and cooperate on energy, without handing over the keys to internal security to Russia. The Sahel experience shows that Russian security support has not reduced civilian harm or restored territorial control durably. Instead, it embedded itself in security institutions and strategic sectors, often through opaque arrangements that deepen grievance and fuel insurgent recruitment. This experience also fractures regional coordination. As Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States, collective security weakened, and Nigeria’s own long-term interests took a hit.

Nigeria has spent decades investing in regional stability, often at a high cost. A security model that fractures regional institutions undermines that investment. Nigeria should diversify security cooperation and refuse to let any one foreign actor dominate its defence system. Regional intelligence and border coordination should not depend on a single foreign pipeline. Domestic defence production and procurement integrity must be transparent enough so that politicians cannot hide behind “urgent security needs” to justify bad deals.

Nigeria’s strength has always been its ability to keep its doors open. This must be guarded jealously with choices that are boring and hard. That choice is not “Russia or the West.” It’s whether Nigeria can build partnerships that remain reversible. The Sahel is burning because diplomacy gave way to dependency. Nigeria should not repeat that mistake.

Rinu Oduala, a human rights activist, writes from Lagos.