A dramatic escalation in militant activity across the Benin-Niger-Nigeria border triangle is imposing mounting economic costs on already vulnerable communities and trade corridors, new data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reveals. Comparing 2024 and 2025, ACLED recorded a 262 percent rise in conflict-related deaths in the region, while violent events increased by 86 percent. The surge is driven by al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which have expanded their footprint into parts of Benin, Niger, and Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, and Kwara states.
ACLED’s West Africa analyst Héni Nsaibia said the groups are using public attack claims to signal dominance. Between June and November 2025, JNIM claimed attacks along the Benin-Nigeria border, marking some of its first overt operations inside Nigerian territory. ISSP also claimed strikes in Niger-Nigeria border towns in December and February. The report cited weak border controls and reduced regional cooperation following Sahel states’ exit from ECOWAS as key enabling factors.
The economic implications are severe. These borderlands are critical transit routes for livestock, agricultural produce, and informal trade that sustains millions of livelihoods. Increased violence disrupts supply chains, raises transportation costs, and forces traders to abandon established routes. Farmers in affected areas face shrinking cultivation zones as insecurity pushes them from fields. The cumulative effect is reduced economic activity, lost tax revenue, and deepening poverty in communities already marginalised from national development.
For Nigeria’s broader economy, the expansion of militant groups into northwestern states threatens to compound existing security challenges in a region already grappling with banditry and kidnapping. The convergence of multiple threat actors creates complex operating environments that deter agricultural investment and complicate humanitarian access. Regional cooperation deficits, exacerbated by the Sahel states’ ECOWAS exit, limit intelligence sharing and coordinated responses, allowing militant groups to exploit jurisdictional gaps.
