Nigeria’s foreign minister Tuggar says internal insecurity is tied to regional security crises across West Africa and the Sahel, urging decisive action to prevent wider collapse.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has delivered a compelling warning that the nation must rethink how it understands and responds to insecurity, insisting that Nigeria’s challenges cannot be separated from the broader turmoil unfolding across West Africa and the Sahel.
According to him, Nigeria’s internal conflicts are only one piece of a much larger puzzle shaped by regional movements, political instability, and the continuous circulation of armed groups.
For this reason, he argued, regional security must become a central priority for Nigeria’s foreign policy and national defence.
Tuggar delivered this message during an ECOWAS ministerial briefing in Abuja, where he emphasised that West Africa is in a delicate moment requiring both vigilance and decisive leadership.
He cited the recent attempted coup in the Benin Republic as one of several developments that demonstrate how swiftly unrest in neighbouring countries can spill across borders and intensify problems at home.
The attempted power grab in Benin, he explained, is not an isolated incident but part of a growing pattern of political volatility that has reshaped the security landscape of the sub-region.
He stressed that Nigeria cannot afford to treat regional conflicts as distant issues. In his words, nations that share borders are also bound by shared risks, shared vulnerabilities, and shared futures.
This is why, he said, Nigeria has a duty—not only to others, but to itself—to respond whenever democratic order or national stability is threatened within the region.
Tuggar reiterated this point clearly: “Nigeria’s internal problems are inextricably linked to the external problems.
“So we would not be doing ourselves any good if the Republic of Benin has a problem and we do not help in tackling it.”
By this he meant that regional security must be viewed as an extension of Nigeria’s domestic security architecture.
If the neighbourhood is unstable, Nigeria will inevitably feel the impact, whether through migration pressure, arms proliferation, or the movement of violent groups.
He explained that the insecurity witnessed in several parts of Nigeria is a reflection of the wider dysfunction stretching across the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin.
Many of the triggers of crises inside Nigeria, he said, are “largely exogenous”, driven by external forces such as terrorism, political ruptures, militia networks, and the unregulated flow of weapons.
These forces do not recognise borders and move wherever opportunities for violence exist, making coordinated regional cooperation indispensable.
The Minister traced the roots of the contemporary crisis to 2011, when the collapse of Libya and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi released large caches of weapons and seasoned fighters into the Sahel.
What followed was a dramatic escalation of armed activity from Mali to Niger, from Burkina Faso to northern Nigeria.
Tuggar explained that the disintegration of Libya opened a corridor for militants, traffickers, and mercenaries who have since fuelled instability with devastating consequences.
He also highlighted the ongoing conflicts in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, describing them as the epicentre of a chain reaction affecting the entire region.
According to him, each of these states faces its own internal battles, but the struggles are deeply interconnected through ethnic groups, shared history, economic tensions, and porous borders.
This interconnectedness is precisely why regional security must be seen as one coordinated system rather than a collection of individual national concerns.
Tuggar further cautioned against the common tendency to misinterpret Nigeria’s internal clashes as religious or ethnic disputes.
He argued that this misunderstanding prevents the public from seeing the true nature of the threat.
The conflicts in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Benue, he said, are not separate crises but manifestations of the same movement of armed groups and illicit networks travelling from the Sahel down through Nigeria’s northwest and central regions.
“It is the same conflict,” he said, “the same forces moving across borders, only interpreted differently depending on where they settle.”
This problem became even more complicated, he explained, when Niger’s recent change of government led the country to withdraw from the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF).
The withdrawal weakened a regional coalition that had previously been crucial in pushing back against Boko Haram and other terrorist groups operating across the Lake Chad Basin. Without unified action, he warned, gains made over the years risk being reversed.
The Minister also pointed out that Nigeria must pay special attention to the Benin Republic, which he described as one of the country’s most strategically important neighbours.
Nigeria already faces significant security pressure from the north and northeast; therefore, instability along the western flank could create a dangerous three-front security challenge.
This is another reason, he said, why strengthening regional security is not an optional task but a national imperative.
Tuggar concluded by reaffirming Nigeria’s long-standing legacy of leadership in promoting stability across West Africa.
He warned that delayed responses to crises often lead to greater regional turbulence, which eventually becomes more costly to resolve.
He praised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for establishing the Regional Partnership for Democracy—an initiative aimed at supporting democratic transitions and encouraging political systems in Africa that reflect local realities rather than imported models.
He noted that democracy in Africa must be strengthened through cooperation, flexibility, and sensitivity to cultural and socio-political contexts.
The Minister insisted that the future of the region depends on collective action, sustained dialogue, and bold leadership capable of defending both national and regional security interests simultaneously.
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