Nigeria

Nigeria is likely to experience significant armed conflict within the next three years, driven primarily by persistent multi-theatre internal violence rather than interstate war.

High likelihood of continued high-casualty insecurity with localized surges in the Northeast and Northwest and episodic mass-abduction waves. The most plausible near-term escalation is temporary militant overruns of rural bases/communities or intensified communal violence in the Middle Belt. Federal emergency measures and expanded deployments may blunt peaks but are unlikely to deliver decisive nationwide improvement. Interstate conflict remains unlikely.

Risk stays high unless Nigeria achieves sustained gains in rural policing, justice/accountability, and disruption of kidnapping finance networks. Sahel deterioration and cross-border militant adaptation could raise northern pressures, while climate/land competition sustains communal violence. A major interstate war remains low probability, but limited cross-border security actions and deeper external security partnerships are plausible. The central forecast is persistent, subnational armed conflict with periodic escalatory spikes.

Risk definition This estimates the probability that Nigeria will be directly involved in significant armed conflict within three years, mainly through escalation of internal armed violence to sustained high-casualty fighting and/or meaningful territorial contestation; interstate conventional war remains a secondary pathway.

Threat drivers Nigeria continues to host several partially connected conflict theatres: jihadist insurgency in the Northeast; banditry/kidnapping and rural criminal governance in the Northwest; farmer–herder and communal violence in the Middle Belt; and episodic separatist-linked violence in the Southeast. Sahel instability increases weapons flows, cross-border militant mobility, and sanctuary dynamics along northern frontiers. Recent reporting indicates continued high incident volumes, mass abductions, and periodic mass-casualty attacks, consistent with an entrenched asymmetric warfare model rather than a declining trend. Political contention around emergency rule and subnational crises (notably in oil-producing areas) can add localized flashpoints and elite rivalry, raising the risk of security-force overextension.

Resilience and systemic firebreaks Nigeria’s conflicts remain fragmented: no single rebel coalition plausibly threatens national takeover, and violence is geographically dispersed, which often prevents a decisive center-periphery civil war. The federal government retains coercive capacity and fiscal tools (even if inefficiently used), and it is visibly prioritizing internal security through deployments, recruitment, and joint operations. International security cooperation and intelligence sharing, including with the United States, can improve targeting and reduce the probability of sudden strategic surprise in key theatres. Regionally, neighbors’ limited conventional capacity and strong economic interdependence keep interstate war risk low; Nigeria is more likely to conduct limited border security actions than fight a major state-on-state conflict.

Net assessment New evidence reinforces the baseline: chronic, organized armed violence remains severe and could plausibly cross thresholds for “significant armed conflict” via (a) jihadist capability gains and sustained base overruns, (b) bandit consolidation into durable territorial control corridors, or (c) simultaneous deterioration across two or more theatres. However, stabilizers still argue against near-certainty: institutional continuity, elite commitment to federation survival, and ongoing security mobilization make a nationwide rupture less likely than continued high but subnational conflict.