Nigeria’s Foreign Policy Responses to the Resurgence of Military Coups in West Africa, 2020 - 2025

Abstract

The resurgence of military coups in West Africa since 2020 has confronted Nigeria with a fundamental tension between its normative commitment to democratic governance and the operational necessity of engaging with unconstitutional regimes on its borders. This study examines Nigeria's foreign policy responses to military coups in West Africa between 2020 and 2025, assessing their effectiveness in promoting democratic governance and regional stability. Anchored on an eclectic theoretical framework combining Political Instability Theory and Realist Theory, the study adopted a qualitative, ex post facto design based on 50 purposively selected semi-structured elite interviews with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, military generals, parliamentarians, academic scholars, think tank analysts, journalists, and ECOWAS Commission officials, analysed thematically and triangulated with documentary sources. Findings show that the resurgence of coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon has significantly strained Nigeria's diplomatic relations with affected neighbours, with only 38 per cent of respondents judging relations to have remained largely intact. Nigeria's influence within ECOWAS and the African Union has been diminished by internal organisational divisions, competing regional powers, and the alternative external patronage networks, particularly Russian security guarantees and Chinese infrastructure finance, now available to military juntas, most visibly through the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS. The study further demonstrates that coups in Francophone West Africa are embedded in intensifying geo-economic contestation between a Franco-American bloc and a Russia–China axis, exemplified by the contested Nigeria–Morocco Gas Pipeline. While Nigeria's peacekeeping and mediation efforts were judged effective by a majority of respondents (45–60 per cent, varying by stakeholder group) in managing the immediate consequences of coups, they showed limited long-term effectiveness in addressing recurrence. The study concludes that Nigeria must transition from institutional reliance and normative rigidity toward adaptive, multipolar diplomacy combining pragmatic engagement with juntas, strategic engagement with external powers, long-term peacebuilding investment, and comprehensive ECOWAS institutional reform.