Flawed Assessments of Nigeria’s Future Contribute to Miguided U.S. Policy

Flawed Assessments of Nigeria’s Future Contribute to Miguided U.S. Policy

Nigeria's recent decision to affirm the handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon belies a Washington theory about Nigeria and American national security. The theory goes like this: Nigeria is on the verge of collapsing into civil war. The poor, marginalized, radicalized Muslim north will rise against the Christian south and a great conflagration will ensue. Twenty percent of Africa's population will be consumed in the fire, and America's access to the flow of oil in the Niger Delta will disappear. Official Washington believes that we must prepare now for the inevitable.

But mere war is far too simplistic an assumption for Nigeria. The complex reality is that the people of Nigeria are not preparing for war; they are rioting for peace. If the United States is sincere in its concern for America and Nigeria's intertwined fates, it must reassess and reconstitute its efforts toward the country to deal with this reality.

America's sudden realization that religion, demographics, and poverty all contribute to conflict around the globe, and our theological belief that the mixture of Islam and civil society mean certain peril for the Western world have blurred American analysis of Nigeria to a comical extent. Faulty analysis begins with the assessment that the government is too corrupt and too divided to be effective in any way. Tell that to the dozens of elected Nigerian officials who debated Bakassi this past week. The process of affirming former President Obasanjo's transfer of the Bekassi Peninsula back to the Cameroonians was filled with arguments not about religion and tribes, but parliamentary procedure and the standards of international law. And though the decision, like so many, was contentious, it was also made. Successfully negotiating international territorial disputes is hardly evidence of an ineffective government.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review