Beneath the Surface By Dakuku Peterside
When West Africans saw videos of mutinous soldiers seizing Benin Republic’s state television, reports of Nigerian jets in Beninese airspace, and Burkina Faso’s anger over a “suspicious” Nigerian military plane, an old pattern reemerged: Nigeria, the regional sheriff, is back. This comforts Abuja’s political class—a story of a wounded giant finding its stride. But, like most power fables, it reveals little and conceals much.
This moment is not just about Nigeria seeking regional leadership. More profoundly, it marks West Africa’s rearrangement: old alliances are weakening, new blocs are emerging, and diplomacy is giving way to military posturing. The celebrated intervention masks a reality—West Africa is entering a phase dominated by displays of military force, with political change increasingly dictated by power rather than consensus.
For many Nigerians, the “Burkina Faso issue” began as an aviation story: a Nigerian military aircraft made an emergency landing in Bobo-Dioulasso, eleven soldiers were detained, and Burkina Faso’s military government protested the lack of clearance. Technically, it’s a procedural dispute. In reality, it is another sign of a simmering standoff between Nigeria and the new Sahel military bloc.
Burkina Faso, along with Mali and Niger, has walked out of ECOWAS and joined the Alliance of Sahel States – a political and security shield for juntas under pressure from sanctions and demands for democratic transition. They present themselves as sovereign patriots reclaiming dignity from foreign meddling and hypocritical regional elites. Abuja, in turn, sees its consolidation – and its embrace of new external patrons – as a direct challenge to the rules-based regional order it spent decades underwriting.
Burkina Faso’s strong reaction to the Nigerian aircraft is best understood as a challenge to Nigeria’s claim to regional dominance. This incident represents a conflict between two models: one based on electoral democracy and norms, the other on military leaders claiming to reflect public dissatisfaction with corruption and foreign influence.
For years, ECOWAS was held up as Africa’s model subregional bloc -bold enough to send troops to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and later The Gambia, to enforce election outcomes and protect civilians. Today, that aura has faded. The exit of the three Sahel juntas has exposed the limits of a community whose cohesion depended on a fragile consensus about minimum political standards: regular elections, term limits observed at least in spirit, and a public commitment to democracy, however hollow it sometimes sounded.
With eroding norms, ECOWAS now lacks the authority it once held. While the bloc still holds emergency meetings and speaks out against coups, its declarations reveal internal divisions. Some members oppose sanctions on military regimes while accepting undemocratic civilian leaders; others hesitate to act. Fragmentation has replaced unity.
Nigeria still drives many of these processes, but the moral and political capital that once made ECOWAS decisions bite has thinned. To the junta, ECOWAS is a neo-colonial proxy. To many citizens, it is a club of incumbent presidents. In this contested space, every Nigerian move – whether a military deployment or a diplomatic démarche – is read not just as statecraft, but as a claim to a contested regional throne.
Benin’s near-coup sharpens these tensions. When mutinous soldiers in Cotonou tried to oust President Talon, they did more than attack the state—they sparked regional danger. A successful coup in Benin would have completed a line of military regimes stretching from Guinea to Nigeria’s borders. For a country already battling insecurity and porous frontiers, that risk was intolerable. Security in Benin is deeply intertwined with Nigeria’s economy and informal trade networks. Its ports, border markets, and smuggling corridors are part of Nigeria’s daily economic life, whether policymakers like it or not. An unstable or hostile regime in Cotonou would ripple through customs revenues, border communities, and political calculations in Abuja and the South West.
Nigeria’s swift military action was not merely a show of solidarity, but a move to safeguard its interests. Stationing troops in Benin highlights that Abuja is now openly using military means to influence regional outcomes. This could be seen as resolute leadership or as increased overseas commitments at a time when Nigeria faces serious domestic problems.
And at home , Nigerian leaders embrace the “Big Brother” role—spending, fighting, negotiating, and bearing the burden of regional stability, often at the expense of domestic economic well-being . In past decades, this relied on economic strength and internal coherence. Today, that foundation is fragile. Nigerians are grappling with rising living costs, a volatile currency, unemployment, persistent insecurity, and deteriorating public services. Confidence in institutions is brittle; faith in politics is thinner still. The organised opposition is fragmented and often reactive, leaving the government with more space to frame national debates but less genuine accountability.
In this environment, foreign interventions are politically enticing; they let leaders project strength abroad and draw attention away from internal problems. These regional crises allow political leaders to demonstrate decisiveness, even as they struggle to address basic problems at home, such as electricity, food, and security.
If foreign policy becomes a domestic show, military actions abroad can distract from Nigeria’s pressing economic and security problems. In this case, strategies for regional power may undermine the government’s legitimacy at home.
At the core of the emerging contest in West Africa is not only territory or language but narrative. The Sahel juntas are telling their people a powerful story: that they are reclaiming sovereignty from corrupt civilian elites and foreign puppeteers, restoring dignity to nations humiliated by insecurity and economic despair. They wrap their rule in the language of patriotism and anti-imperialism, even as they centralise power and muzzle dissent.
ECOWAS and Nigeria, by contrast, insist that the only sustainable foundation for peace is constitutional order – that coups, however popular they may briefly appear, deepen instability and invite repression. They argue that flawed elections can be corrected and institutions strengthened, whereas militarisation of politics leads to a dead end.
Many citizens in the region distrust both military and civilian leaders. They see juntas failing to deliver security and elected governments unable to stop corruption. Mistrust has created a space for competing national narratives, used as tools for influence and legitimacy among skeptical publics.
Now, power is judged not just by military might but by who can win public trust. Yet, as the narrative struggle intensifies, leaders turn to force—deploying troops and security alliances—while efforts to build strong institutions and responsive governance are often neglected.
Nigeria stands at the centre of this swirl, both protagonist and cautionary tale. It cannot retreat into isolation; its geography, demography, trade routes, and cultural reach make that impossible. What happens in Benin, Niger, or Burkina Faso will continue to shape its security and prosperity. Abuja will sometimes have to act – swiftly, even forcefully – beyond its borders. That is the burden of being the largest power in the neighbourhood.
But Nigeria cannot afford to believe its own flattering myths. Regional power is not a substitute for domestic renewal; it is a derivative of it. A state that is unsure of its social contract at home cannot sustainably underwrite stability abroad. If Nigeria’s policing, justice, economic governance, and political institutions remain fragile, no number of foreign deployments will secure lasting influence. At best, it will win short-term tactical victories and lose the strategic contest for legitimacy.
Equally, this would require Nigeria’s leaders to treat domestic reform as the foundation of any meaningful regional role. Stabilising the currency, reducing poverty, restoring confidence in law enforcement and the courts, tackling grand corruption, and rebuilding trust between state and citizen are not merely “internal” issues; they are the bedrock of sustainable influence. A prosperous, well-governed Nigeria is far more persuasive than a struggling Nigeria that flies jets over its neighbours.
Burkina Faso, Benin, and the wider Sahel are not just distant theatres in a new Great Game. They are mirrors held up to Nigeria’s face. In them, the country can choose to see a flattering portrait of an unchallenged hegemon, or a more honest image: a pivotal, powerful but vulnerable state, whose choices – between force and reform, spectacle and substance, narrative and reality – will help determine whether West Africa sinks deeper into a cycle of coups and counter-coups, or slowly edges toward a more stable, genuinely democratic order.
•Dakuku Peterside is the author of two best selling books; Leading in a Storm and Beneath the Surface.
