Constructing the Nigerian Hegemon: Identity, Interests, and the Production of Regional Leadership Norms in West Africa

This dissertation investigates the social construction of Nigerian regional hegemony in West Africa, examining the discursive and normative processes through which Nigerian state identity, self-perception, and material power have been translated into recognised leadership authority within the ECOWAS system. The research challenges purely material accounts of regional hegemony by arguing that Nigeria's leadership role is reproduced through continuous identity performance, norm entrepreneurship, and strategic use of multilateral institutional design. Drawing on constructivist international relations theory, discourse analysis, and the concept of legitimate authority in regional orders, the study examines how Nigerian presidents, foreign ministers, and ECOWAS secretariat officials have constructed, contested, and reproduced hegemonic narratives from 1975 to 2024. A discourse analysis methodology is employed, drawing on an extensive corpus of presidential speeches, ECOWAS treaty texts, summit communiques, and diplomatic memoirs. Three historical episodes are selected for intensive analysis: the ECOMOG intervention in Liberia, the 2017 Gambian crisis resolution, and the 2023 Niger coup response. The dissertation makes an original contribution by demonstrating that Nigerian hegemony is not simply a function of capability preponderance but is contingently produced through discursive legitimation practices that are increasingly contested by Sahel states asserting alternative sovereignty narratives. Theoretical contributions are offered to constructivist theory and the study of regional orders in the Global South. Keywords: hegemony, constructivism, Nigeria, West Africa, regional order.