By Oyewole O. Sarumi
In early February 2026, the United States officially confirmed the deployment of a small contingent of military personnel to Nigeria, marking a significant escalation in Washington’s engagement on African soil.
The deployment follows a recent uptick in coordinated terrorist attacks across northern Nigeria, an insecure Sahel region and persistent insurgency challenges that have strained Abuja’s capacity to guarantee internal security. U.S. officials have publicly framed this move as part of mutual counter-terrorism cooperation designed to assist Nigerian forces, particularly through enhanced intelligence, reconnaissance and capacity-building support to counter extremist groups linked to the Islamic State and affiliated networks.
Yet beneath this stated purpose lie broader strategic dynamics that deserve careful scrutiny, not least because of the complex interplay between security assistance and geopolitical interest across the African continent.
When viewed through the dual lenses of chaos theory and game theory, and anchored in the historical critique of neocolonial relations articulated by figures such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, it becomes evident that this deployment cannot be understood merely as an altruistic counter-terrorism partnership.
Rather, it reflects the United States’ effort to recalibrate its influence in a rapidly evolving geopolitical theatre in which the traditional Western presence is contested by emergent actors, indigenous resistance to external military footprints, and shifting regional power alignments.
African Security and the US Strategic Pivot
Nigeria’s security situation has deteriorated over the past decade, fuelled by the long-standing Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, the rise of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the emergence of the nascent Lake Chad-linked Lakurawa group and pervasive banditry across the northwest. These overlapping conflicts have cost countless lives and displaced millions, contributing to Nigeria’s ranking among Africa’s most terrorism-affected countries worldwide.
In December 2025, the United States conducted a series of airstrikes in Sokoto State against Islamist militant targets, at the request of the Nigerian government. This operation, involving precision-guided munitions launched from naval platforms in the Gulf of Guinea, signalled an important shift from remote intelligence cooperation to direct kinetic involvement.
The February 2026 announcement of on-ground U.S. military personnel, officially described as advisory forces focused on intelligence support, takes this cooperation a step further to the dismay of anti-US involvement in the country, while protagonists are joyful. Nigeria’s Defence Minister emphasised that the Americans are not combat troops and that the operation remains under Nigerian command. Nonetheless, the presence of U.S. troops, even in an advisory capacity, raises foundational questions about sovereignty, national agency and longer-term strategic influence.
Echoes of Nkrumah: Neocolonialism Revisited
The late President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah’s critique of neocolonialism in the 1960s warned against post-independence forms of domination in which former colonial powers, and newly ascendant global powers like the United States, exert political, economic and military influence under the guise of technical assistance or security cooperation. For Nkrumah, neocolonialism was insidious precisely because it operated within formally sovereign states yet subverted authentic self-determination.
I posit that the contours of the U.S. presence in Nigeria evoke Nkrumah’s insights. Although Washington frames its engagement in humanitarian and counter-terror terms, there are clear incentives aligned with American strategic interests: securing access to critical minerals and energy corridors, countering the influence of rival powers such as Russia and China, maintaining regional reach in the context of the broader Sahel, and demonstrating capability in global theatres amid a multipolar order.
Indeed, as Western military footprints have receded elsewhere in the Sahel, African states such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have expelled French and U.S. forces following coups, aloud realignment toward alternative partners. The so-called Alliance of Sahel States, comprising those three countries, launched a joint military force in late 2025 to conduct counter-terrorism operations in the absence of Western troops, reinforcing the extent to which local actors are asserting autonomy and challenging external security models.
This shift has coincided with a substantial increase in Russian influence across the Sahel. Moscow’s Africa Corps is present in Mali and Burkina Faso providing security support to junta governments, while Russia has cultivated defence and resource agreements across the region. China and Gulf states have also expanded economic and infrastructural engagement in the Sahel with US absence becoming obvious.
Against this backdrop, U.S. engagement in Nigeria can be construed as a strategic counterbalance designed to prevent the wholesale loss of influence, and by extension, access to natural resources, military overflight rights, and political leverage, across West Africa. So, the insecurity in Nigeria on the pretext of protecting Christian ‘genocide’ is a unique opportunity for the US to regain influence in this strategic region in Africa. And Nigeria seems cornered and powerless to resist this urge as many of her citizens based in US are the proponents of the genocidal narrative, which suits the present US government desire in counteracting the advantage of the other players in this geopolitical chess game.
Strategic Interplay: Chaos and Game Theory
A critical examination of chaos theory, with its emphasis on the dynamic, non-linear interactions within complex systems, provides a useful lens for understanding the West African security environment. Nigeria’s insurgencies, communal conflicts and environmental insecurities are interconnected with the broader regional disorder in the Sahel. Small perturbations, such as coups in neighboring states, the withdrawal of foreign forces or the rise of new militant networks, can cascade into large system-wide transformations. Indeed, the current environment underscores how seemingly isolated events in Bamako, Ouagadougou or Niamey can amplify effects in Abuja and beyond.
In this regard, and by contrast, Game theory helps to unpack the strategic calculus of external and internal actors. States make decisions not in isolation but based on anticipated responses from others. For the United States, deploying troops to Nigeria is not simply about defeating terrorist threats but about signalling capability and commitment both to African partners and to global competitors. It serves to “move the equilibrium” in Washington’s favour by shaping the expectations of allies and adversaries alike regarding future U.S. engagement in Africa. However, such moves can also trigger counter-moves: resistance from domestic constituencies, increased alignment between African states and non-Western powers, and potential escalation of insurgent hostility toward foreign presence.
Implications for Nigeria and the Region
For Nigeria, the implications of this U.S. engagement are multifaceted both in the short and long term. On the positive side, enhanced intelligence support, training and access to advanced reconnaissance capabilities could improve the operational effectiveness of Nigerian security forces, particularly against agile insurgent networks. Strategic cooperation may also facilitate greater integration into regional counter-terrorism architectures.
However, these potential benefits carry attendant risks. As some analysts have argued, foreign military involvement, especially when translated into kinetic action, can inadvertently fuel perceptions of external interventionism that insurgent groups exploit for recruitment and propaganda, potentially exacerbating insecurity rather than ameliorating it.
Moreover, the optics of foreign military presence can undermine public confidence in Nigeria’s own security apparatus, weakening trust in the state’s capacity to provide for its citizens. Historically, coups in the Sahel have been justified by domestic actors on precisely these grounds, portraying civilian governments as incapable of ensuring security and accusing Western powers of perpetuating neo-colonial dependence. While Nigeria’s democratic institutions remain robust relative to its neighbours, similar dynamics could gain traction if external engagement is perceived as substituting rather than strengthening domestic capacity.
When we considered this regionally, U.S. presence in Nigeria also interacts with shifts in alliance patterns. As the Sahelian juntas deepen ties with Russia and create new security frameworks like the AES, Nigeria’s alignment with Western security interests may create diplomatic friction. At the same time, Nigeria’s position as the most populous African state and a leading economy places it at the fulcrum of competing strategic interests, making it a pivotal arena for influence theatre.
Will This Lead to a Larger Footprint?
One of the dominant anxieties surrounding U.S. engagement is whether the current advisory deployment presages a deeper military presence. Let me say that historical precedent offers insight for critical thinking. American security assistance often begins with training and intelligence missions, which can evolve over time into more substantial footprints, particularly if domestic instability persists or if strategic competitors escalate their own involvement.
However, several factors constrain such expansion. First, Nigeria’s insistence on sovereignty and national command of operations serves as a check against open-ended foreign intervention. Second, Washington’s own domestic politics, especially with changes in administrations and competing budgetary priorities, render sustained large-scale deployments less predictable. Finally, the contested strategic environment means that overt military expansion may provoke stronger resistance from regional actors wary of replicating the very conditions that led to Western withdrawal from the Sahel.
As we end this piece, I am of the opinion that the deployment of U.S. military personnel to Nigeria is emblematic of the complex interplay between security imperatives and great-power competition in contemporary Africa. I submit that underneath the official narrative of counter-terrorism cooperation lies a broader strategic calculus shaped by the withdrawal of traditional Western forces from neighbouring states, the rise of alternative security partnerships such as Russia’s Africa Corps, and a shifting regional architecture in which African actors are asserting new forms of sovereignty and alignment.
So, from a theoretical standpoint, this engagement illustrates how systems characterised by high connectivity, as in the Sahel-West Africa security environment, can produce unpredictable outcomes, while strategic actors continuously adjust their postures in response to the anticipated moves of others.
However, for Nigeria’s future, this moment represents both opportunity and challenge. It is a fact that partnership with the United States could strengthen its counter-terrorism capability, yet it also carries risks associated with dependency, strategic signalling and regional realignment. It remains essential that Abuja navigate this engagement with clarity of purpose, ensuring that sovereignty, national agency and long-term capacity building are not undermined by external strategic interests disguised as cooperation. In this delicate balance lies the true test of Nigeria’s leadership in securing peace and stability for its citizens and for a region in flux without allowing subterranean interest of neocolonialist disguised as assistance to draw the country into a war that may ruin generations yet unborn.
