Reports of United States airstrikes against Islamic State’s West Africa Province’s (ISWAP) targets within Nigeria’s Northwest have revived an enduring debate in international relations: whether such actions constitute violations of sovereignty or reflect the evolving norms of security intervention in a world shaped by transnational threats.
Classical international law offers a clear answer. Sovereignty implies exclusive authority over territory, and foreign military action without consent constitutes an unlawful use of force. Yet the modern international system has steadily moved away from this absolutist conception. In practice, sovereignty is no longer treated as a static entitlement but as a responsibility—one increasingly judged by a state’s ability to exercise effective control over its territory.
This evolution did not begin with the global war on terror, and Nigeria is hardly its first or only subject. It reflects a broader structural shift in how power, security, and legitimacy interact in contemporary global politics.
Nigeria’s own history illustrates this transformation with clarity
In January 1977, the People’s Republic of Benin Republic faced an attempted coup led by foreign mercenaries under Bob Denard. Nigeria did not invade Benin, but it acted decisively in the aftermath, providing political backing and security assurances that helped stabilise a neighbouring state whose collapse would have posed immediate regional risks. The principle was unmistakable: instability next door was not a private matter.
That logic resurfaced more explicitly in December 2025, when Nigeria intervened to help quash a coup attempt in Benin Republic. This was not counter-terrorism cooperation, nor a symbolic diplomatic gesture. It was a direct security intervention aimed at preventing an unconstitutional seizure of power in a neighbouring state. Nigeria acted because it could, because it was asked, and because regional stability demanded it.
These actions were not imperial adventures. They were expressions of regional responsibility rooted in capability. Yet they also demonstrate a critical point often overlooked in contemporary debates: Nigeria has itself operated within a framework where sovereignty is constrained by security necessity.
This framework was later institutionalised through ECOWAS interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 1990s. Those operations, led largely by Nigeria, established a powerful precedent: when state failure threatens regional order, sovereignty may be overridden—or suspended in practice—even if preserved in rhetoric.
Seen in this light, much of our current outrage demands less emotion and more intellectual honesty
Terrorist organisations such as ISWAP are not treated internationally as conventional domestic insurgencies. They are viewed as nodes within transnational ideological, financial, and operational networks. Once such groups establish durable territorial footholds, the territory they occupy is no longer perceived purely as a national concern but as part of a wider security theatre.
In this context, sovereignty is increasingly assessed through the lens of performance. Effective control matters more than formal title. States that cannot consistently deny their territory to actors deemed dangerous beyond their borders attract external interest, pressure, and, at times, intervention.
This pattern is not unique to West Africa. The United States’ unilateral operation against Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, its long-running strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and its military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria all reflect the same underlying logic: where effective control collapses, sovereignty becomes elastic.
This does not imply a morally neutral system. The international order remains profoundly unequal. Powerful states enjoy greater latitude to interpret necessity, while weaker states are expected to justify restraint. Sovereign equality exists more comfortably in law books than in strategic practice.
But inequality alone does not explain the phenomenon
Nigeria’s own conduct — both historically and recently—demonstrates that states act beyond borders when vital security interests are at stake. To argue otherwise is to deny our own record. The issue, therefore, is not whether sovereignty can ever be constrained, but under what conditions and by whom.
Public outrage following foreign military actions often misses a crucial reality of modern diplomacy: consent is frequently tacit. Coordination is often quiet. What is denied publicly may have been negotiated privately. Silence does not necessarily imply humiliation; it often reflects the tension between operational necessity and domestic political legitimacy.
The deeper question Nigeria must confront is not whether the principle of sovereignty still exists — it does — but whether it can be sustained without the capacity to enforce it.
Sovereignty today is not secured by declarations alone. It rests on institutions, intelligence, territorial control, and credible force. Where these weaken, sovereignty becomes conditional, interpreted through regional and global security priorities rather than national assertion.
Nigeria’s December 2025 intervention in Benin Republic underscores this reality from the opposite direction. It shows that Nigeria still understands power, responsibility, and necessity when circumstances demand action. The same logic, uncomfortably, applies when Nigeria is on the receiving end of external concern.
The lesson here is neither ideological nor accusatory. It is structural
In the contemporary world, sovereignty is sustained by capacity. States that possess it shape outcomes; states that lack it manage consequences. History—our own included—offers no durable alternative, however uncomfortable that may be.
What occurred need not be framed as a breach of Nigeria’s sovereignty. A more credible reading is that it arose from technical collaboration undertaken with the knowledge of President Tinubu’s government. In an era of borderless terror, such quiet cooperation is neither novel nor dishonourable. President Trump’s decisiveness in confronting a shared threat—treating Nigeria as a partner rather than a bystander—deserves acknowledgment. Nigeria, in turn, loses nothing by owning this reality: sovereignty is not weakened by cooperation; it is exercised through it.
Adefemiwa, author, public communicator and advocate for good governance is based in New York, United States. He can be reach via email: jerome.adefemiwa@gmail.com
