A Critical Geopolitics of Transboundary Water Governance in the Niger Basin: Nigeria’s Hydro-Political Relationships with Upstream Riparian States

Nigeria's growing vulnerability to upstream hydrological decisions in the Niger and Benue River basins, amplified by Cameroon's Lagdo Dam operations and Guinea's upstream abstraction for irrigation, demands a comprehensive critical geopolitics analysis of Nigeria's hydro-political relationships that extends beyond technical water diplomacy to examine the power-laden territorial logics shaping transboundary water governance arrangements. This study develops a critical geopolitics framework applied to Nigeria's transboundary water governance relationships, focusing on the Niger and Benue River basins that are central to the water and flood security of the North Central and North West geopolitical zones. Theoretical grounding draws from critical geopolitics, hydro-politics, postcolonial international relations, and political ecology of water. The empirical research combines systematic document analysis of Niger Basin Authority treaty archives, ECOWAS water governance protocols, and Nigeria Federal Ministry of Water Resources policy documents with elite interviews conducted with 45 water governance actors including Nigerian diplomatic negotiators, hydrological engineers, civil society advocates, and basin authority officials across Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin Republic. Quantitative analysis of 60-year discharge records from key gauging stations in Nigeria documents the downstream hydrological consequences of upstream infrastructure development. Results reveal systematic asymmetries in the Niger Basin Authority governance architecture that consistently privilege upstream state interests in infrastructure development decisions, with Nigeria repeatedly accepting downstream flood and low-flow risks without adequate compensation mechanisms. The Lagdo Dam case is analysed as an exemplary hydro-political failure where technical bilateral agreements failed to anticipate Nigeria's downstream flood risk escalation. The study makes original contributions to African transboundary water governance theory and critical geopolitics scholarship. Keywords: transboundary water, hydro-politics, Niger Basin, critical geopolitics, Nigeria.