A new report released by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a Washington-based crisis-tracking consultancy, has warned that extremist groups are jostling for control across West Africa stretching from Mali to Nigeria.
It warned that militant organizations, once contained largely within Mali and parts of Burkina Faso, are now converging along a dangerous belt extending all the way to Nigeria. Over the last decade, tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced, making West Africa the world’s deadliest hotspot for jihadist activity.
The southward spread of militant violence from the Sahel has made the past year in Benin Republic, which foiled an attempted coup on Sunday, its deadliest on record, with nearly 70 per cent more fatalities as al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) stepped up attacks from eastern Burkina Faso.
JNIM crossed a new threshold in October when it staged its first documented attack inside Nigeria after a decade of bloodshed in Mali and major incursions into Burkina Faso and Niger. ACLED reports that the group is now embedding itself in the northwest and parts of the north-central region.
ACLED warns that if current trends persist, 2026 may bring deeper instability and fragmentation in the central Sahel and along its southern borders. Nigeria’s northmost part lies within the southern fringe of the Sahel ecological zone.
Nigeria is already fighting a war against terrorism in the North East, where Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) operate across the Lake Chad basin.
This development presents a fresh security dilemma for President Bola Tinubu, who is already contending with mass abductions, banditry, and long-running insurgencies.
He already faces additional pressure from US President Donald Trump, whose claims of systematic killings of Christians in Nigeria have been widely debunked but continue to fuel diplomatic tension.
ACLED noted that Russia’s military partnerships with juntas in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, which seized power in recent years riding a wave of anti-French sentiment are weak, evidenced by Mali currently witnessing its highest monthly levels of recorded violence since 1997.
It also noted that the region’s wave of coups has only worsened long-standing drivers of extremism: deepening poverty, environmental stress, corruption, broken governance, and humanitarian collapse. Just recently, a coup occurred in Guinea Bissau and one was almost successful in neighbouring Benin Republic.
“In the coming year, this subregion is likely to become a key arena of competition among militant groups,” Mr Heni Nsaibia, West Africa senior analyst at ACLED, said in the report. “One of the key developments shaping the outlook for 2026 is the consolidation of a new frontline in the Benin, Niger and Nigerian borderlands.”