Nigeria seeks to reduce over-reliance on US security

Nigeria seeks to reduce reliance on the US by strengthening ties with the EU, Turkey and Egypt. Photo / Getty Images

This week’s visit to Brussels by Nigerian security adviser Nuhu Ribadu is Abuja’s latest effort to diversify its foreign security partners and avoid excessive dependence on the United States.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, faces a host of security challenges. They include a jihadist insurgency in the northeast, a conflict between farmers and herders in the centre and separatist violence in the southeast.

Deteriorating security in the Sahel – the vast region bordering the southern Sahara desert – has enabled jihadist groups to expand their activities in northwestern Nigeria.

That part of the country is also plagued by armed gangs who loot, kidnap and kill.

The United States cited an increase in attacks blamed on jihadists and armed gangs as the reason it launched airstrikes on the northern state of Sokoto on December 25, in coordination with the Nigerian authorities.

The United States Africa Command (Africom) deployed about 100 soldiers earlier this week to Bauchi state in the northeast and told AFP another 100 would be deployed “in the coming weeks”.

Nigeria’s defence ministry said the government had asked Washington to provide the military personnel “to support a clearly defined military training requirement, technical support and intelligence sharing” with the Nigerian army.

The US troops were not, it stressed, combat forces.

‘More respectful than the US’

At Wednesday’s talks in Brussels, Nigeria and the European Union agreed to “deepen collaboration on regional stability” and strengthen “joint efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism”, the EU said.

To that end, President Bola Tinubu said he had asked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for “used helicopters to help in intelligence reconnaissance” in the Sahel.

An EU diplomat in Abuja said the 27-nation bloc wished to “strengthen security and defence co-operation” with Nigeria, particularly in the northwest.

While it would supply “non-lethal military equipment”, it ruled out deploying troops there, said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We are more consistent, more reliable, more coherent and more respectful of national sovereignty” than the United States, they added.

Tinubu’s state visit to Turkey in January – the first by a Nigerian head of state in nine years – also included a security component.

“We are working with our Nigerian counterparts to deepen military co-operation,” Turkey’s ambassador to Nigeria, Mehmet Poroy, told Nigeria’s national news agency NAN.

Turkish companies would provide “military equipment and critical systems”, he said. They were working with Abuja on “joint local production of equipment in Nigeria”.

Turkey is the world’s top exporter of armed drones.

Challenge to US influence

Nigeria is also turning to other partners in Africa.

Egypt said in January it wanted to strengthen co-operation with Nigeria “aimed at eliminating terrorist organisations in Central and West Africa and the Sahel”.

The Nigerian authorities are also pushing for the standby force deployed by ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) to become more active on the ground. This, however, has been hampered by disagreements among member countries over how the force will be financed.

“These moves are pragmatic and timely, representing a shift toward a more balanced, multipolar foreign policy that reduces overreliance on any single partner,” said analyst Kabir Adamu of Abuja-based consultancy Beacon Consulting.

“Diversification ensures no single ally dominates,” he added – and that would help preserve Nigeria’s independence and protect against risks such as cuts in US aid.

Confidence MacHarry, an analyst at SBM Consulting in Abuja, told AFP it also made sense for Nigeria to diversify its options for financial reasons.

“I don’t think that Nigeria is in the right financial position to continue ... to buy US security assistance if this is not going to be some sort of a grant, or a humanitarian aid,” he said.

Adamu cautioned that the move to diversify partners “might strain relations with the US, which has historically viewed such shifts as challenges to its influence”.

But, “if managed well”, they could “lead to more effective, tailored security outcomes”.

- Agence France-Presse