Nigeria is already behaving as if 2027 is the most important event coming. It may not be.
While our politicians are busy exchanging accusations, calculating defections and counting electoral mathematics, a far more dangerous calculation is taking place thousands of kilometres away. President Bola Tinubu must therefore keep one eye on Nigerian politics—and the other firmly on Vladimir Putin.
Gauging the world events right now, my prediction is uncomfortable: Russia may eventually attempt to test NATO.
Not necessarily by marching into Germany or Poland. That would be suicidal. The more tempting gamble would be against a smaller NATO state. For example, a limited incursion or carefully manufactured confrontation designed to ask one terrifying question: Does Article 5 still mean what it says?
Nigeria’s economy is beginning to show signs of stability. The IMF projects growth of about 4.1 per cent in 2026. But one event could violently rearrange those assumptions: an expansion of the Russia-Ukraine war into NATO territory.
My research is conclusive that Vladimir Putin, frustrated by a war he expected to conclude quickly, may eventually be tempted to test NATO by provoking or attacking one of its smaller members. This is a scenario, not a certainty. But responsible governments prepare not only for what is probable; they prepare for what would be catastrophic.
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Article 5 of the NATO Treaty regards an armed attack against one member as an attack against all. NATO reaffirmed that commitment as recently as its July 2026 Ankara summit. A Russian attack on Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or another member could therefore transform today’s European war into the gravest confrontation between nuclear powers since the Cold War.
Nigeria would not be watching from the sidelines.
First would come the oil shock. Paradoxically, higher crude prices could initially increase Nigeria’s dollar earnings. Europe received roughly 48 per cent of Nigeria’s crude and condensate exports in 2024. Europe also accounted for nearly 42 per cent of Nigeria’s total merchandise exports in the first quarter of 2025.
But an oil-price boom is not automatically good news. War would raise shipping, marine insurance, aviation fuel and global transportation costs. The naira could come under pressure as investors flee emerging markets for dollars and other safe assets. Imported machinery, pharmaceuticals and industrial inputs would become more expensive. Food and fertiliser prices could rise. Inflation could return with vengeance.
The IMF already warns that higher international food, fuel and transportation costs constitute significant risks to Nigerian growth and inflation. A NATO-Russia confrontation would multiply them.
Air travel would also suffer. Wider European airspace restrictions, rerouting and higher insurance premiums could make Nigerian-European travel more expensive and disrupt cargo logistics. Cyberwarfare could threaten banking, telecommunications and energy infrastructure far beyond Europe.
So, what should Tinubu do now?
Nigeria needs a geopolitical economic war-room—not after the first Russian missile lands on NATO territory, but now.
Government should stress-test the budget against $70, $100 and $150 oil, remembering that expensive oil increases revenue but can also increase domestic costs. Nigeria should accelerate crude production, protect pipelines and build reserves during any windfall rather than immediately spending it.
Secondly, Dangote and other domestic refining capacity must become strategic national shock absorbers. Nigeria cannot remain an oil producer frightened whenever the international market for refined products convulses.
Thirdly, government must aggressively expand gas and LNG capacity. Europe’s continuing retreat from Russian energy presents Nigeria with both a security responsibility and a historic commercial opportunity.
We must also diversify export markets, strengthen cybersecurity, prepare alternative shipping and aviation routes and accumulate stronger foreign-exchange buffers while circumstances permit.
Nigeria has spent too many decades responding to crises after they arrive.
COVID arrived—we reacted.
Ukraine happened—we reacted.
Oil collapsed—we reacted.
Global inflation came—we reacted.
That is not strategy.
Strategy is preparing for the punch before the fist arrives.
President Tinubu may therefore discover that one of the biggest threats to Nigeria’s economic recovery before 2027 will not come from Atiku, Obi, ADC, APC or any opposition coalition.
It may come from Vladimir Putin deciding to discover whether NATO is still NATO. If that day comes, Nigeria should not convene its first committee. The committee should have finished its work.
That is the difference between a country that watches history happen and one that prepares to survive it.
The lesson of Ukraine is simple. Before February 2022, many intelligent people saw Russian troops, armour, field hospitals and ammunition gathering around Ukraine, and still concluded that invasion was irrational.
They were analysing the world as they believed it ought to behave, rather than as it actually behaves.
Nigeria must not repeat that mistake.
The greatest economic crisis of 2027 may not begin in Abuja.
It could begin with one Russian soldier crossing the wrong European border.
And when that happens, the question will no longer be what Putin intends to do.
It will be whether Nigeria prepared before he did it.
