Nigeria’s Hegemonic Status in Africa: Factors, Discourse and Prospects

The debate surrounding the hegemonic status of powerful African nations provides the context for this study, which re-evaluates Nigeria’s hegemonic status. Nigeria’s evolution from traditional humanitarian intervention to aligning with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine suggests a willingness to act as a stabilizing force in an unstable region. This role is a pressing regional concern and a matter of global interest. Essentially, the consolidation of a legitimate African hegemon could address regional instability and release substantial international humanitarian resources dedicated to the continent. The debate between proponents and opponents of Nigeria’s hegemony hinges on its historic commitment to peacekeeping and mounting domestic challenges. Using the Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST), this reviews the arguments around Nigeria’s hegemonic status. It draws on qualitative data from secondary sources and primary data from in-depth interviews with key informants from specialized agencies. The findings show that Nigeria’s commitment to regional stability through peacekeeping stems from its Afrocentric foreign policy and self-imposed sense of ‘manifest destiny’, but these efforts alone do not confirm hegemonic status. While Nigeria exhibits a measure of normative leadership expected of a hegemon, domestic pressures undermine its capacity to fully embody the role of a hegemon. The study concludes that Nigeria performs a ‘quasi-hegemonic’ function that has contributed to relative stability especially in West Africa. However, diminishing domestic capacities required for sustained regional leadership presents a significant constraint on Nigeria’s transformation into an effective African hegemon with critical implications for regional stability and international humanitarian financing.