In early November, US President Donald Trump’s social media posts set off alarm bells across Nigeria. He said the US “Department of War” was preparing to launch a “firefight” into the West African country over the killing of Christians in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s government, led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, quickly hit back, rejecting the claims and saying it was false that Christians were being specifically targeted, as the country faces a difficult security situation due to armed groups and bandits, but Muslim communities and traditional believers have also been attacked.
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But the Trump administration was not appeased. The government put Nigeria on its watch list as a country of particular concern (CPC) for religious freedom and quickly threatened sanctions, cuts in financial aid and punitive measures against Abuja for its “failure” to protect Christians.
As Nigerians feared a possible bombing campaign against their country, the Tinubu government – which still denies accusations of “Christian genocide” – quietly reversed course. Instead of aggressive rhetoric, he said he welcomed U.S. assistance in addressing security challenges that have long been a thorn in the side of successive Nigerian governments.
Weeks later, on the night of December 25, the United States launched what President Trump called a “powerful and deadly” offensive in northwestern Nigeria, with the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) saying the attack was carried out “at the request of Nigerian authorities.”
Cooperation between the United States and Nigeria appears to only be deepening, culminating this week with the arrival of 100 U.S. military personnel to Nigeria to help train Nigerian soldiers in the fight against insurgents.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Defense said the U.S. military would provide “technical assistance” and “information sharing” to help target and defeat “terrorist organizations,” although they would not play a direct combat role.
For many, this development comes as a surprise. In just over three months, Nigeria appears to have reversed President Trump’s “Christian genocide” claims and instead secured U.S. military support for Abuja’s own military objectives against the insurgents.
“There’s a big shift happening,” said Ryan Cummings, director of analysis at Signal Risk, an Africa-focused risk management firm. The narrative has “completely shifted from a slap on the wrist to almost like joining hands and tackling this together.”
Although a notable change, this is not entirely surprising to many analysts who see Nigeria’s cooperation as a strategic move towards de-escalation.
“This is neither unexpected nor hypocritical,” said Cheta Nwanze, chief executive of Nigerian risk advisory firm SBM Intelligence, noting that Nigeria’s long-standing security partnership since 1999 has supported Western military doctrine.
What has changed, he said, is “the American attitude.” The U.S. government now feels it has more of a right to engage with countries in which it sees strategic interests, he said.
lobbyists and working groups
Kabir Adamu, director of security and intelligence at Beacon in Abuja, feels that the Tinubu administration has been “successful in defusing President Trump’s threat and establishing a joint working group between the two countries.” But the “challenge” is that Abuja does not have enough transparency about the process, the risk analyst said.
“How much did it cost[the government]to do this?” he asked. “There has been a lack of transparency in informing Nigerians of the agreements reached with the U.S. government, which has led to the escalation of the situation.”
In January, the United States and Nigeria convened a joint working group to discuss Nigeria’s CPC designation and how Nigeria can work to reduce violence against vulnerable populations. But beyond that, few details are known about what happened between Trump’s first threat and the first U.S. attack.
But Signal Risk’s Cummings points to one trade in particular that he believes helped turn the tide. On December 17, the Nigerian government, through a legal intermediary, hired lobbyists from the Washington DC-based DCI Group for a reported $9 million.
According to the terms of the agreement posted online, DCI will “assist the government of Nigeria through Aster Legal in communicating actions to protect Nigeria’s Christian communities and maintain U.S. support against jihadist groups and other destabilizing elements in West Africa.”
Cummings said Nigeria was determined to “fight fire with fire” when hiring DCIs, and compared Abuja’s approach to actions taken by South Africa in the face of similar false accusations by the Trump administration of “white genocide” in the country.
In both Nigeria and South Africa, Cummings said, the claims were first spread by local minority lobbies backed by U.S. Republicans and evangelicals. These groups fed selectively assembled or exaggerated accounts to the Trump administration.
Nigeria hired lobbying groups “basically to convince the Trump administration that what’s going on in Nigeria and what certain lobbying groups have been communicating to the Trump administration is not an accurate reflection of the reality,” Cummings said.
“And that appears to have played a pivotal role in changing the US government’s attitude towards Nigeria,” he said.
Cummings added that President Trump’s position on Africa is strongly shaped by America’s conservative evangelical base, expressing concern for Christians around the world and sympathy for white minorities who are perceived as victims of black governments.
Mr. Cummings said Mr. Trump’s concern for these groups is genuine in the sense of acting in favor of his core base, but it is helpful in another way. Trump has used issues such as “Christian persecution” and “white genocide” to pressure other countries into broader foreign policy coordination.
“Calculated trade-off”
Pressuring states for geopolitical gains is playing out in Africa and beyond the continent as well, Nwanze and Adam said, pointing to the recent U.S. abduction of then-President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, which, like Nigeria, has large oil reserves.
Nwanze said recent US moves regarding Nigeria are in some ways related to “asserting control over global energy flows” because “Nigeria has tens of billions of barrels of oil reserves and is Africa’s largest producer. The US national security strategy prioritizes securing strategic resources through unilateral action.”
“The counter-terrorism framework is real, but it is useful because it covers interventions that also serve resource security objectives,” he explained.
Adamu also cited the example of Venezuela, saying that witnessing the US abduction of Maduro likely “made the Nigerian government more willing to cooperate with the US.”
Adamu described Nigeria’s decision to allow the US intervention as a “calculated trade-off”, one that provides security benefits through intelligence sharing with the US military. and strengthen diplomatic ties with great powers while also maintaining Nigerian-led oversight of U.S. operations.
From Tinubu’s side, cooperation with the United States is an “operational necessity,” Nwanze said. “Nigeria’s security forces are overstretched, and U.S. intelligence and air power provide a tactical advantage against the insurgents.”
However, Cummings warned that while US aid may improve Nigeria’s tactical counterterrorism capabilities, it would “treat the symptoms” and not the socio-economic conditions at the root of the violence.
“There hasn’t been enough focus on how the United States can actually assist the Nigerian government in addressing the causes of these insurgency. This relies heavily on basic economics, creating job opportunities, ensuring that governance and access to public services are good in these areas, and making sure that as a country and as a government we can make a better deal with local communities than with jihadists,” he said.
Risk of escalation by armed groups
In fact, analysts said the US military presence in Nigeria could actually empower armed groups.
“There is a real risk of escalation,” Nwanze said, noting that recent security data compiled by his firm shows “an increase in attacks” since the US CPC designation.
He said militant groups such as the Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP) and al-Qaeda-linked Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) have “consistently used the narrative of foreign intervention to recruit and radicalize personnel.”
“December’s (US attack on Nigeria) will serve as propaganda fodder, allowing local grievances to be framed as part of a global war against Western forces,” he added.
“There is also a risk that armed groups could rebrand themselves as resisting foreign occupation and gain propaganda benefits that outweigh their tactical losses.”
Adam said the U.S. presence could give insurgents an incentive to step up attacks, especially symbolically. But more than that, “controversy and differing support among Nigerians for the U.S. presence could lead to further polarization of Nigeria along religious and ethnic divides.”
He said there was a “domestic perceived risk” in Abuja, noting that previous Nigerian governments faced public criticism when they allowed the US presence in Nigeria, and many now feel that Mr Tinubu is “handing over the country to US imperialism”.
Nwanze agreed that domestic “optics” were a matter of concern. “The perception that their sovereignty has been violated is fueling nationalist resentment and deepening their distrust of the government,” he said.
For Mr Cummings, Nigeria was in a difficult position in the face of US aggression and said: “Ultimately, it was a wise decision by the Tinubu government to strengthen cooperation with the US.”
Analysts argue that Nigeria has historically been pro-Western and has economic, political, social and diaspora ties to the United States. In the absence of alternative partners such as BRICS or other South-South alliances, Abuja’s cooperation and seeming coordination with the Trump administration was the best way to defuse the crisis, he said.
But other analysts like Nwanze worry that the Tinubu government has left the country at greater risk by choosing to concede to President Trump the right to violate Nigeria’s sovereignty even under Nigeria’s supervision.
“Additional U.S. military presence, even if limited, risks expanding the ideological scope of the conflict and further exacerbating instability,” he warned. “(Armed) groups were already motivated. Now they have to tell a more convincing story.”
