Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, has spent a better part of his time doing what his predecessors often did in private but rarely admitted in public: phoning foreign leaders in search of weapons, training and political cover. His latest call was to Emmanuel Macron. The French president, fresh from being chased out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger by juntas intoxicated with anti‑French fervor, has now discovered a new enthusiasm for Nigeria. Tinubu, for his part, is only too happy to oblige. He announced that France has agreed to collaborate on military equipment and training, and that Nigeria is prepared to “spend its goodwill and lines of credit” to secure whatever it needs.
It is a revealing moment. France, once the self‑appointed sheriff of the Sahel, has been reduced to a wandering security entrepreneur, looking for a host that will not throw it out at the first whiff of populist nationalism. Mali’s junta has embraced Russian mercenaries; Burkina Faso has followed suit; Niger has torn up defence agreements and expelled Western forces. Paris, humiliated and homeless, now courts Abuja with the eagerness of a suitor who knows he has run out of options.
Tinubu, meanwhile, is performing his own choreography. He needs foreign kit to confront the metastasizing violence in the North and Middle Belt. Jihadist attacks in the north‑east continue; banditry in the North‑West has become industrialized; and communal killings in the Middle Belt have acquired a grim regularity. The president calls this the “next phase of our struggle,” as though the previous phases had been neatly concluded. His promise that Nigerians will “share the joy” of victory over tyranny sounds less like a plan than a prayer.
Yet the real theatre is not in Lagos or Abuja, but in the diplomatic corridors where Nigeria is suddenly the belle of the ball. European leaders, from Slovakia’s Eduard Heger to Switzerland’s Marc Jost and Austria’s Gudrun Kugler‑Lang, have descended on Abuja to praise Nigeria’s peace efforts and to urge unity. Religious leaders have issued communiqués calling for an end to impunity, early‑warning systems, mediation and restorative justice. It is all very earnest, very ecumenical, and very familiar. Nigeria has heard these sermons before.
What is new is the geopolitical desperation behind them. Europe needs a stable partner in West Africa now that the Sahel has slipped into the hands of juntas who prefer Moscow’s embrace to Paris’s lectures. Nigeria, with its size, its army and its democratic veneer, is the only plausible candidate. The First Step Forum’s interfaith gathering in Abuja, replete with declarations, appeals and moral exhortations, was less a spiritual exercise than a diplomatic audition. Europe wants Nigeria to succeed because Europe needs Nigeria to succeed.
Tinubu understands this. Hence the musical chairs: one moment courting Macron, the next phoning other capitals, all while assuring governors that Nigeria has “those who are willing to support us.” It is a delicate dance. Too much French visibility risks importing the anti‑French sentiment that toppled partnerships in Mali and Burkina Faso. Too little engagement risks losing access to the equipment and training Nigeria desperately needs. Tinubu’s meeting with Macron’s chief of staff was deliberately low‑key for this reason. Nigeria wants the hardware, not the baggage.
But the danger is that Nigeria becomes the last refuge of Western security ambitions in a region where those ambitions have repeatedly failed. Mali’s junta, flush with Russian support, has shown no interest in returning to constitutional rule. Its counter‑insurgency operations have been marked by allegations of abuses and mass casualties. The jihadists have not been defeated; they have simply adapted. If Nigeria becomes the new centre of gravity for Western counter‑terrorism, it risks inheriting not only the resources but also the expectations, and the blame.
Tinubu’s challenge is to avoid becoming the next custodian of a failing strategy. Foreign equipment may help, but it will not resolve the political, economic and communal drivers of violence in the North and Middle Belt. Interfaith declarations may soothe consciences, but they will not stop militias who have discovered that impunity is a renewable resource. And European endorsements, however flattering, will not substitute for the hard work of rebuilding trust in regions where the state has been absent for years.
Nigeria is now the stage on which Europe and France hope to redeem their Sahel misadventures. Tinubu is the man they must dance with. But musical chairs is a dangerous game because when the music stops, someone is always left standing.
