Nigeria’s Strategic Crossroads: Navigating U.S.–China Tensions and the BRICS Shift in Africa By Araka Okolieaboh
A New Geopolitical Crossroads
In 2030, as imagined in U.S. scenario analyses such as Failed State 2030: Nigeria as a Case Study, the specter of Nigeria’s collapse looms as both a domestic tragedy and a global security shock. The intensification of rivalry between Washington and Beijing has revived what John Mearsheimer termed the tragedy of great power politics: in an anarchic system, great powers seek dominance, while weaker states must navigate among them for survival.
Nigeria—Africa’s largest population, democracy, and oil producer—stands at the center of this tragedy. Its chronic insecurity, corruption, and governance fragility render it susceptible to external manipulation. Yet its energy resources, demographic heft, and cultural influence make it indispensable to global power calculations. The question is whether Nigeria can preserve autonomy and avoid becoming collateral damage in a new Cold War between the United States and China.
The Great-Power Lens
Mearsheimer’s logic holds that great powers act to maximize relative advantage and deny rivals regional dominance. In Africa, this competition now unfolds most visibly in Nigeria.
For the United States, Nigeria is the anchor of West African stability and a bulwark against jihadist extremism. Successive U.S. Threat Assessments have identified Nigeria’s governance deficits, energy significance, and demographic weight as potential sources of global disruption. Washington provides security assistance and diplomatic support while pressuring Abuja on human-rights compliance.
Beijing approaches Nigeria through trade, investment, and infrastructure. Since establishing relations in 1971, China has financed railways, ports, and power stations under the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese firms now dominate Nigeria’s construction sector, and bilateral trade exceeds $20 billion annually.
For Mearsheimer, such dueling engagement illustrates the security dilemma: each great power interprets the other’s outreach as encroachment, prompting counter-moves. Nigeria thus becomes an object of courtship—and potential coercion.
The Fragility Factor
Nigeria’s internal weaknesses magnify external rivalries. Despite three decades of democracy, corruption remains systemic, oil dependence stifles diversification, and insurgencies persist from the northeast to the Middle Belt.
The Failed State 2030 scenario warned that persistent fragility could invite direct foreign intervention to secure energy assets and contain humanitarian spillovers. As both Washington and Beijing acquire economic stakes, their incentives to intervene grow. The danger is that Nigeria’s weakness could transform it from partner to battleground—precisely the “tragedy” Mearsheimer described.
Non-Alignment in a Polarized World
At independence, Nigeria’s leaders adopted a non-aligned foreign policy emphasizing sovereignty, African solidarity, and avoidance of bloc politics. The doctrine served it well during the first Cold War.
Today, however, globalization and economic interdependence have blurred ideological lines. Nigeria’s diplomacy resembles strategic hedging: it deepens economic ties with China and the BRICS bloc while preserving security cooperation with the U.S. and EU. Its 2025 admission as a BRICS “partner country” signaled this pragmatic diversification.
For Abuja, multiple partnerships increase leverage; for Washington and Beijing, they increase suspicion. Nigeria’s balancing act sustains autonomy but may also intensify the very competition it seeks to escape.
BRICS and the Temptation of Easy Finance
The expansion of BRICS, led by China, offers Nigeria alternative development finance with fewer governance conditions than Western lenders require. The New Development Bank and Chinese credit lines have funded highways, ports, and power plants.
These partnerships bring tangible benefits—faster infrastructure delivery and non-intrusive diplomacy—but also carry risks. Opaque contracts, limited technology transfer, and potential debt distress threaten to exchange one dependency for another.
Strategically, BRICS provides diplomatic cover for Nigeria’s Global South activism, particularly on UN reform and trade. Yet overt alignment with a China-led bloc could alienate Western investors and complicate access to Eurobond markets. The challenge is to convert BRICS engagement into genuine autonomy rather than a new form of patronage.
The U.S.–EU Alternative
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For Washington and Brussels, Nigeria’s success is pivotal to their credibility in Africa. Yet Western engagement has often been reactive—focused on counter-terrorism and elections rather than structural transformation.
A new framework should emphasize:
Blended Finance: Combine development aid and private capital to offer transparent infrastructure finance with governance safeguards.
Technical Partnerships: Build Nigerian regulatory and anti-corruption capacity rather than simply deliver funds.
Market Access: Expand trade preferences for value-added exports.
Security Cooperation with Accountability: Continue military training and equipment sales under enforceable human-rights oversight.
Such engagement would demonstrate that liberal partnerships can compete credibly with BRICS offerings while respecting Nigerian sovereignty.
Nigeria’s Strategic Imperatives
To withstand great-power cross-pressures, Nigeria must pursue its own strategic imperatives:
Rebuild Internal Security: Integrate counter-insurgency with governance and justice reform to restore legitimacy.
Diversify the Economy: Invest in manufacturing, agriculture, and digital services to reduce dependence on oil and foreign loans.
Ensure Debt Transparency: Publish loan contracts and strengthen debt-management institutions. 12
Lead Regionally: Use ECOWAS and the African Union to contain instability, thereby raising the cost of external interference.
Codify Strategic Hedging: Establish foreign-investment screening and sovereignty safeguards to manage great-power engagement.
If implemented, these measures can convert competition into opportunity and anchor Nigeria’s sovereignty in institutions rather than rhetoric.
Peace Through Strength—Reinterpreted
Thucydides’ dictum—“the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”—captures Nigeria’s dilemma. In today’s context, peace through strength must mean institutional resilience, strategic collaborations not militarization in the form of “Melian Dialogue” which is not impossible in Great Power competition.
A state that governs transparently, empowers its citizens, and negotiates external partnerships on clear terms is strong. One that relies on patronage and secrecy is weak, regardless of military size.
The tragedy of great-power politics is not inevitable; it is amplified by domestic fragility. Strengthening internal governance is therefore Nigeria’s best defense against external coercion.
Avoiding the 2030 Collapse Scenario
Nigeria can still avoid the “failed-state” scenario if it acts decisively now. The following priorities are essential:
Rebuild Legitimacy: Implement digital anti-corruption platforms and fiscal transparency to restore public trust.
Invest in Human Capital: Expand education and employment to prevent extremism and emigration.
Institutionalize Balanced Diplomacy: Engage both BRICS and Western partners under rules of parliamentary oversight and public disclosure.
If these reforms take root, Nigeria will remain a stabilizer rather than a flashpoint in great-power competition.
For the United States: Compete, Don’t Contain might not be a better strategy
For Washington, Nigeria’s trajectory will test whether U.S. Africa policy can evolve from containment to constructive competition. A Nigeria that collapses would expose U.S. weakness; one that thrives through balanced engagement would affirm the resilience of the rules-based order.
The United States should therefore:
• Support Nigeria’s regional leadership through ECOWAS;
• Invest in green energy and digital governance partnerships;
• Respect Nigeria’s right to pursue BRICS engagements that serve its interests.
In a realist world, stability—not hegemony—is victory.
Conclusion: Turning Tragedy into Strategy
Mearsheimer’s tragedy cannot be abolished, but its costs can be managed. For Nigeria, survival amid great-power rivalry will depend less on external goodwill than on domestic coherence. A competent, transparent, and regionally anchored Nigeria can transform global rivalry into competition for partnership rather than dominion.
For the West, recognizing Nigerian agency and supporting its resilience will yield more durable influence than coercion. For China and the BRICS bloc, genuine cooperation requires moving beyond loans to technology transfer and industrial capacity building.
By 2030, Africa will host one-quarter of the world’s population; Nigeria will be its demographic heart. Whether that heart beats for stability or crisis depends on how Nigeria—and the great powers around it—play the realist game.
Tragedy, in this sense, is not destiny. It is a warning.
Araka Okolieaboh, CMC, FIMC
Policy Design Thinker & Prompt Engineering Specialist, WSB University Poland
