Foreign policy experts warn that rising economic desperation among African youths is increasing their vulnerability to alleged deceptive recruitment into foreign military conflicts, including reports involving Nigerians in Russia.
Professor Femi Otubanjo, an International Relations scholar, said emerging reports of Africans ending up in military camps abroad reflect broader global recruitment patterns driven largely by economic hardship. “It takes two to tango. So, you have to have a partnership for certain things to be achieved,” he said, noting that the redirection of foreign job seekers into military service is not new in global conflict dynamics. He added, “The reality is that we have to admit it too, there are a lot of Africans who are desperate to go anywhere,” stressing that with between 50 and 60 per cent of Africa’s population made up of young people, unemployment and the lure of foreign currency continue to push many into risky migration decisions. “No country wants to admit that it is using mercenaries because it wants to claim it has the capacity from its own citizenry,” he said.
Similarly, Dr Nicholas Erameh, Senior Research Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), said claims of forced conscription require careful scrutiny. “It is difficult to say Russians came into Nigeria to pick people and forcefully conscript them into their armies,” he said, adding that some individuals may have entered agreements voluntarily or under misleading employment promises. “The best way is for the government to establish a fact-finding mission to test the veracity of the claims and counterclaims,” he said.
Concerns have intensified following the case of Abubakar Adamu, who reportedly travelled to Moscow in late 2025 on a tourist visa and later alleged he was deceived into joining the Russian Armed Forces. An investigative report by All Eyes on Wagner indicated that fewer than 36 Nigerians were recruited to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, with at least five confirmed dead, describing some foreign fighters as deployed in high-risk operations as “cannon fodder.”
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