NIGERIA’S DIPLOMATIC HEGEMONY IN WEST AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE THREE GUINEAS: GUINEA CONAKRY, GUINEA-BISSAU, AND EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of Nigeria’s "Pax Nigeriana" through a comparative historical analysis of its diplomatic and military interventions in the Three Guineas: Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea. Historically serving as the sub-regional "paymaster," Nigeria has shouldered a significant "hegemonic burden," contributing over 60% of the ECOWAS annual budget and expending an estimated $20 billion on regional peacekeeping by 2025. While about $688 Million have been expended in the Three Guineas alone since 1975. By analyzing Nigeria’s interventions in the 2021 coup in Conakry, the 2022 stabilization mission in Bissau, maritime security leadership in the Gulf of Guinea and other related events, this study argues that Nigeria’s hegemony has transitioned from raw military enforcement to a nuanced, normative stabilization diplomacy. Despite internal security pressures and a resurgence of regional instability through 2025, Nigeria remains the indispensable pillar of West African stability, albeit one increasingly constrained by the domestic opportunity costs of its "concentric circle" foreign policy.