Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Nassawara State University, Jideofor Adibe asserted that Nigeria’s evolving relationship with the United States should be understood through the prism of national interest and leadership dynamics rather than emotion or historical sentiment.
Speaking In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Saturday, Adibe said recent developments including Nigeria’s redesignation as a country of particular concern, reported US precision strikes, and diplomatic tensions are not unusual in international relations and do not represent a permanent rupture.
“The first thing to understand is that the relations between countries are quite often dynamic, and is often also dependent on the kind of leaders you have in different countries.”
Adibe explained that states routinely justify their foreign policy actions by invoking national interest, particularly when intervening in the affairs of other countries. “Usually, countries will use national interest to justify any decision they want to take, especially when it involves getting involved in the affairs of another country. Now, this is where it gets very tricky, because you can use national interest to justify any action, from attacks to even passivity.”
He said concepts like preemptive strike are often used to argue that an imminent threat must be neutralised, while preventive strikes are justified on the grounds that a future danger must be stopped early. “For example, in international relations, you have what you can call preemptive strike, which means you can tell your domestic audience that you took an action because there is an imminent danger that if you allow certain capabilities to be developed in a third country, that will be used against you. Of course, there is always the moral issue of how do you define imminent.
Then there is also the one they call preventive strike, in which case you can talk about a long term that, look, the strike may not be imminent, but if it is not nipped in the bud, it can be used against us.”
Adibe argued that US President Donald Trump’s approach reflects this pattern, with rhetoric largely designed for domestic consumption rather than foreign approval. “The way it is framed, sometimes you frame the justification for your intervention differently for your national audience, which I think Donald Trump has tried to do. And then it’s now dependent on the Nigerian government to frame it for its own domestic audience, which also they have been trying to do by saying that, well, we were involved, it was a collaboration. Of course, we know that America will not get involved in any form of military collaboration in which it is not in charge.”
On whether the current tensions signal a low point in Nigeria–US relations, Adibe said personalities matter, but state relations are ultimately shaped by leverage rather than goodwill. He described Trump as a leader motivated by transactions rather than ideology. “How will it affect going forward? Some people say Donald Trump is essentially a transactional leader. If you offer him what he likes, he may change his mind. We can also get into another president who is more ideologically driven, like Joe Biden. So it’s not really going to fundamentally change many things. It depends on, again, the leadership. But in terms of state relations, the important thing is the leverages a country can bring on the table at any point in time.”
Turning to counterterrorism, Adibe rejected the idea that US involvement in Nigeria represents a new or isolated development. “It didn’t start today. As early as 1901, an American president, William McKinley, was assassinated. At that time, the people that were regarded as terrorists were the people known as the anarchists. Since then, America had sworn to eliminate terrorism wherever it could see it.
America has always been involved. It takes it more like an article of faith in trying to fight terrorism.”
He said US actions in Nigeria should be seen as part of a broader, global campaign rather than a Nigeria-specific intervention, noting that similar actions have taken place in countries such as Syria. “That’s why I say that it’s not just in Nigeria. They had also attacked Syria preemptively. They are not looking at it now in an isolated case. It’s part of a continued fight against terrorism.”
Domestically, Adibe warned that Nigeria’s biggest challenge lies not in foreign intervention but in weak nation-building and the absence of consensus on the foundations of the state. “Back home, what does this tell us? It tells us about the problem of national building and nation building in Nigeria. Also, because of the fragility of the Nigerian state, and because of the lack of consensus on the parameters of even statehood, every problem, every solution thrown at our multifarious problems tend to become part of the problem.”
He observed that security actions are quickly interpreted through ethnic, religious, and regional lenses, deepening mistrust and polarisation. “People were clamouring, let us fight. Let us fight this terrorism. They accused the government of not doing enough. Then the government does something, it brings another problem. I can see already that people from the north are already like, it’s becoming a north-south Christian something, you know, dimension. So that is part of the problem of the country. It’s not a problem of the president. Any other person could have, you know, it could have happened under any other president.”
On regional implications, Adibe said Nigeria’s perceived alignment with Western powers could strain relations with Sahel states that have distanced themselves from France and Western influence. “I don’t think it’s only about the Sahel states. That’s a dimension of it. Sahel will have implications in terms of their own. Already they have moved away from ECOWAS, and their force to lobby them to come back, I think is already lost. President Tinubu has been very close to France. It’s not going to help matters. But in other areas, in identity studies, we say that the identity that is perceived to be under threat is the one most vociferously defended.”
He cautioned that rhetoric associated with US actions could galvanise radical elements rather than suppress them, potentially compounding the very problems such interventions aim to solve. “Now, it might tend to bring the Muslims together, especially the radical Muslims. That will be a challenge we may have to be prepared for, that it might rather than help, be able to compound the problems it was set to solve.”
Addressing concerns about transparency and the apparent absence of direct communication between the Nigerian and US presidents, Ofor-Adibe said secrecy is inherent in international security operations and public disclosure is often limited by strategic considerations. “Well, we can only speculate, Steve, because we don’t know what goes behind the curtains. We don’t know their perceptions. Remember, after the president of Buhari, what Trump was reported to have said about him. Now, so far, we haven’t seen the president say such things about President Tinubu. So we can say at least he got a better mark than Buhari. About what happened in Ofa, in Kwara State, and in Djabo, we don’t have the full intelligence. It is also possible that they have the intelligence that they are using this place to stage an imminent attack, and therefore they struck. But in international relations, you don’t show all your hands.”
On foreign policy more broadly, he said Nigeria’s external influence is constrained by internal divisions, arguing that strong diplomacy flows from domestic cohesion and elite consensus. “Well, first thing is that your domestic foreign policy derives its strength from your domestic policy and the extent to which you’re able to achieve elite consensus in your own country. So we have very little leverage in this regard. And as I said, America and Donald Trump is playing to an audience, and that is his own primary concern. He’s playing first to his Christian rights. There is no country in the world that is as strong as America, America first.
There is a doctrine known as a responsibility to protect. I’ve heard so many people talk about sovereignty, but the notion of sovereignty has evolved. For example, in 2005, you have the UN World Summit, which is the most attended by heads of states and government in history, and then just a document from the International Committee on Intervention and Sovereignty, which simply says that the international community can intervene in other countries to protect against genocide, against other crimes. And this happened in the wake of what happened in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. And so you can actually use that as a justification, apart from the notion of preemptive strike that I mentioned earlier. So this responsibility to protect, you cannot be talking just about sovereignty. Now they’ve made sovereignty to be an obligation. In fact, the African Union adopted or domesticated the same doctrine when it talked about a move away from non-interference to non-indifference. So it has a consensus that in certain conditions, countries will move in.”
He concluded that Nigeria’s challenges will persist unless leaders prioritise consensus-building over narrow political, ethnic, or religious interests. “I believe that if our leaders were able to focus on building consensus, not just to play to the gallery of your ethnic and religious groups, then we come closer, it becomes easier for us to be able to confront other challenges that come our way without solutions we try to throw at our problems compounding the problems themselves.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
Follow us on:
