by Mohammed Bello Doka
28 May, 2026.
On a quiet Tuesday in March 2026, multiple MQ-9 Reaper drones began operating from an airfield in Bauchi, northeastern Nigeria. They were not Nigerian assets. They belonged to the United States military, which had quietly deployed approximately 200 troops to Nigerian soil alongside these unmanned aircraft. The stated mission was intelligence gathering and training support, not combat. Officials from both countries emphasised that the troops would not be integrated within Nigerian units on the frontline and that the drones would collect intelligence rather than carry out airstrikes .
But the deployment tells a different story. It represents the most significant American military re-engagement in West Africa since the 2024 withdrawal from Niger, where the United States had operated a major drone base monitoring militants across the Sahel region. That base was closed after Niger’s military junta requested the departure of American forces, part of a broader rejection of Western military support by countries in the Sahel . Now, with the entire region in flames, Washington is pivoting to Nigeria as its last standing partner in the fight against Sahelian jihadism. For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, this alliance is a gamble of enormous proportions. It offers the promise of enhanced intelligence and counterterrorism capacity. But it also exposes Nigeria to the diplomatic wrath of its northern neighbours, ties Abuja more tightly to a volatile American foreign policy, and risks transforming Nigeria into a staging ground for a new proxy war it can ill afford.
The security picture that prompted this shift is genuinely alarming. Across the Sahel, jihadist violence is not merely persisting; it is accelerating and coordinating in ways previously unseen. In late April 2026, terrorist groups launched coordinated attacks across multiple regions in Mali, killing the country’s Defence Minister, Sadio Camara, in a rare show of unity between jihadist militants and Tuareg separatists . The assault came against a backdrop of rising violence following military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the withdrawal of French forces, and the exit of United Nations peacekeepers. The Sahel has effectively become the global epicentre of extreme jihadism, and the security vacuum left by departing Western powers is being filled by new actors .
Professor Femi Otubanjo, Research Professor at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, warned of a domino effect. There is a military principle called the domino theory, he told Vanguard. If one domino falls, the other dominoes are likely to fall. West Africa is the epicentre of extreme jihadism in the world now. If any jihadist group has the upper hand in any country, it is going to be an encouragement to the others around. If they take Mali and become the government of Mali, obviously it means that we should be expecting the expansion of jihadism in the sub-region . This is not alarmist speculation. Nigeria’s own north-west and north-central regions are already battling banditry and insurgent-linked attacks.
The experts are unanimous that Nigeria has reason to worry. A report from Vanguard quoting experts noted that jihadist groups are scaling up coordination and ambition, and warned that without regional unity, intelligence, and clear results, Nigeria could be the next target . Professor Otubanjo lamented that Nigeria’s insurgency does not seem to be diminishing despite years of military operations, and criticised the lack of tangible results from Nigeria’s security strategy. It’s like somebody goes into an exam and spends three hours writing the paper. The fact that he completes the paper does not mean that he will pass. The result is what will determine the outcome. We are not seeing any tangible results from our military or our security strategy, he said .
It is against this grim backdrop that Tinubu has pursued a strategic realignment toward Washington. In December 2025, the United States carried out airstrikes targeting what it said were Islamist bases in northwestern Nigeria, a significant escalation of direct American involvement. However, these strikes have been controversial. Members of the United States Congress have formally requested detailed explanations from the Pentagon on the US airstrikes conducted in Nigeria on December 25, 2025, as well as the broader American military posture in the country . The lawmakers, led by a Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Sara Jacobs, and Congressman Jason Crow, demanded clarification on the operation, including its legal basis, coordination with Nigerian authorities, and reports suggesting possible civilian casualties and operational errors .
The congressional inquiry cited reports alleging that at least four of 16 missiles failed to detonate as intended or missed their intended targets by hundreds of miles, with some reportedly striking farmland and residential buildings . Nigerian broadcaster Ladan Salihu, a former director-general of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, stated that the US air strike on Christmas night in Jabo village, Sokoto state, missed its intended target and lacked precision. According to a Sokoto state assembly member who visited the site, the missiles landed in an empty plain field approximately 300 metres from a local hospital, resulting in no casualties or fatalities . Salihu noted that Jabo village had recorded no terrorist or ISWAP-related activity throughout 2025, and questioned whether the strike was aimed at known terrorist figures or was intended to grab a headline or send an inexplicable message .
By March 2026, the drone deployment was confirmed. By May 2026, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, was in Washington for a three-day working visit from May 4 to May 6 that included meetings with US Vice President J.D. Vance, Acting National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Allison Hooker, and Assistant Secretary of War Daniel Zimmerman . The discussions focused on counterterrorism, defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, regional security, economic resilience, and democratic governance . Ribadu conveyed President Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to the longstanding alliance, and both sides pledged deeper engagement through the Nigeria-United States Joint Working Group .
The early results of this cooperation have been dramatic. In May 2026, President Donald Trump announced that Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, identified as the second-in-command of ISIS globally, had been killed in a joint operation carried out by American and Nigerian forces inside Nigeria . Trump said in a Truth Social post, Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield . According to documents from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, al-Minuki was born in 1982 in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, which borders Cameroon, Chad and Niger . He had long been a focus of Nigeria’s military operations. However, a clarification from the Presidency noted that security agencies had earlier listed an individual with the same name among those reportedly killed during operations in the Birnin Gwari forest axis in Kaduna State, but later established that the attribution was incorrect. The Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, stated that the earlier listing was a case of mistaken identity or misattribution in the fog of sustained counterinsurgency operations .
For the Tinubu administration, this victory is a political trophy. It demonstrates that the new alliance with Washington produces tangible results. But the strategic picture is far more complicated. The very success of the US-Nigeria partnership is accelerating a diplomatic rupture with Nigeria’s northern neighbours, precisely the countries whose cooperation is essential for containing the spread of Sahelian jihadism.
The rupture dates to July 2023, when Niger’s democratically elected president was overthrown by military officers. Tinubu, who had assumed the chairmanship of the Economic Community of West African States just days earlier, responded with shock therapy. He threatened military intervention to restore constitutional order, a threat that Professor Chidi Odinkalu, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, has described as reckless and strategically unsound. Without exerting any sinews to see what could be resolved, President Tinubu threatened an invasion of the Niger Republic, Odinkalu told The Toyin Falola Interviews in February 2026. The Nigerian army, with its commitments, could never have invaded the Niger Republic. It was loose talk that had toxic consequences because it meant a collapse of that strategic security bargain that we had reached.
The consequences have indeed been toxic. Niger called Nigeria’s bluff, exited ECOWAS, and was followed by Mali and Burkina Faso. Those three countries, now governed by military juntas, have formed their own Alliance of Sahel States and pivoted decisively toward Russia, Turkey, and China for security and diplomatic partnerships. The juntas have replaced over half of their ambassadors, welcomed dozens of new foreign envoys, and deepened ties with Moscow.
The diplomatic chill has descended into outright hostility. In December 2025, Niger’s junta leader, General Abdourahamane Tiani, accused France of paying Nigeria to set up terrorist operation centres in states bordering Niger, including Borno and Sokoto. Tiani specifically pointed to President Tinubu’s state visit to Paris in late November as evidence of a conspiracy. Nigeria’s Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, flatly denied the accusations, which he said exist solely in the realm of imagination. ECOWAS, still chaired by Tinubu, also refuted any suggestion that such a generous and magnanimous country would become a state sponsor of terrorism.
But denials do not restore trust. Nigeria now finds itself in a position where its two primary security strategies are colliding. To the south and east, it is deepening military cooperation with the United States, the very power the Sahelian juntas have rejected. To the north, it faces a hostile bloc of military regimes that view Abuja as a proxy for Western interests. Intelligence sharing across the Lake Chad Basin, once a functional if imperfect mechanism for coordinating counterterrorism operations, has deteriorated sharply. The Multinational Joint Task Force, which includes troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin, has been weakened by the diplomatic estrangement between Nigeria and Niger. Professor Babatunde Ayeleru of the University of Ibadan warned that the crack experienced as a result of the exit from ECOWAS by the Sahel countries is already a source of concern for the maintenance of peace in the subregion. He predicted illicit trade, weapon smuggling, and disruption of food supply to Nigeria as a result.
There is a bitter irony here. The United States turned to Nigeria after losing its drone base in Niger precisely because the Sahelian juntas expelled Western forces. But by embracing Washington so publicly and aggressively, Tinubu is further entrenching the very dynamic that led to the juntas’ hostility in the first place. The Sahelian regimes see the US-Nigeria alliance as a threat to their survival. They have responded by deepening their partnership with Russia, which has offered to provide weapons and training for a joint military force. The region is rapidly becoming a theatre for a new great power competition, and Nigeria is on the front line.
Femi Ojumu, a foreign policy expert and international lawyer, has cautioned that foreign partnership is good, but Nigeria needs organic development of its own security arrangements which prioritise its national interests. He noted that the MNJTF and ECOWAS security arrangements have proven incapable of sustainably quelling terrorism, speaking to significant internal divisions within ECOWAS itself, not least with the exit of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. That lacuna imperils the effectiveness of counter-terrorist activities in the Sahel.
The economic dimensions of this collapse are rarely discussed in security circles, but they are devastating. The disruption of regional trade routes, the closure of borders, and the collapse of agricultural production in conflict-affected areas are all direct consequences of the security crisis that Tinubu’s foreign policy has failed to contain. When terrorist organisations begin to come together, it means that there are forces outside that are bringing them together. It means that they are being supplied and encouraged, Professor Otubanjo warned. He added that insecurity was displacing northerners and crippling commerce. Any fever in any part of West Africa will have serious consequences for the other parts. There’s no country in West Africa that can take the scourge of refugees that will come from Nigeria if we get into any violent altercation with ourselves .
What is the way forward? Some experts have called for a renewed diplomatic effort to repair relations with the Sahelian juntas. Professor Odinkalu has argued that the government should be working to reconstruct the security bargain that was destroyed by the reckless threat of invasion. Others have suggested that Nigeria should leverage its economic weight, particularly in energy and trade, to create incentives for cooperation rather than confrontation. But there is little evidence that the Tinubu administration has a coherent strategy beyond deepening the US alliance and hoping that drone strikes and intelligence cooperation will compensate for the collapse of regional partnerships.
The death of Abu-Bilal al-Minuki is a genuine achievement. But it is a tactical victory in a strategic war that Nigeria is losing. The jihadist groups operating in the Sahel are not centralised organisations that can be decapitated with a single strike. They are diffuse, adaptive networks that thrive in ungoverned spaces and exploit political grievances. Killing a leader, even the second-in-command of ISIS globally, does not eliminate the conditions that produce such leaders. It does not restore trust between Nigeria and its northern neighbours. It does not prevent the next coordinated attack, or the next massacre, or the next general killed in ambush.
As Nigeria approaches 2027, voters will have to judge whether Tinubu’s gamble on a US alliance has made the country safer. On the evidence so far, the answer is no. The alliance has produced some high-profile victories, but it has not reversed the deterioration of regional security. It has deepened Nigeria’s estrangement from its neighbours. It has drawn the country into a broader geopolitical contest it cannot control. And the insecurity that plagues the north-west and north-central regions continues unabated. The new scramble for the Sahel is underway, and Nigeria is betting heavily on the American horse. But in a region where every previous external intervention has ended in withdrawal and chaos, that bet looks less like a strategy and more like a desperate gamble.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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