Nigeria and the African Union: Evaluating Nigeria’s Leadership Role in Continental Peace and Security

This study evaluates Nigeria's leadership contributions to African Union peace and security mechanisms since the organisation's establishment in 2002, with particular attention to peacekeeping operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and the Lake Chad Basin. Nigeria's claim to continental leadership is grounded in its demographic weight, economic size, and military capacity, but questions persist about whether its leadership translates into consistent and effective multilateral outcomes. Using a descriptive analytical design, the study reviews AU Peace and Security Council records, ECOWAS intervention documents, and Nigeria's defence white papers, complemented by secondary literature published between 2020 and 2024. The Leadership Theory in International Relations and the Regional Hegemony Framework provide the analytical lenses. Findings indicate that Nigeria's most effective continental leadership has been exercised through the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and contributions to AU missions in Somalia and Darfur. However, domestic security challenges have increasingly constrained Nigeria's capacity to project stabilising influence beyond its borders. The study also identifies inconsistencies between Nigeria's continental human rights rhetoric and its domestic governance record as a source of diplomatic credibility gaps. Keywords: Nigeria, African Union, peacekeeping, continental leadership, ECOWAS.