In June 1998, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice testified before Congress, telling lawmakers the reasons why US-Nigeria relations had soured over the previous five years:

More than two decades later, Rice's assessment of Nigerian state behaviours during Sani Abacha's military regime (1993–1998) is all too familiar. Under the civilian government of President Muhammadu Buhari (2015–2023), ‘misguided policies, mismanagement and corruption’ remained the norm. Although nominally a democracy, Nigerian elections have become exercises in competitive rigging, and government efforts to stifle free speech and target its critics have intensified. Like the Abacha regime, the Buhari government has not hesitated to infringe on Nigerians’ constitutionally protected freedoms, and commits gross human rights violations with impunity, as its violent crackdown on the 2020 #EndSARS protests illustrates.

Yet despite these parallels, Nigeria's relations with the international community generally – and the United States specifically – remain relatively unperturbed. Under Buhari, state abuses and norm-breaking have not sparked the same degree of international outcry nor attracted the sanctions they did during the Abacha period. Indeed, the United States has hosted Buhari at the White House twice, approved controversial arms sales to his government and shied away from criticizing its governance failures, democratic backsliding, and human rights abuses.

Structured in three sections, this chapter seeks to explain this apparent inconsistency in US foreign policy approaches to Nigeria. In the first section, it argues that the conduct of the Buhari government and the Abacha regime is very much analogous in three areas traditionally prioritized by US foreign policy makers: democracy, human rights, and corruption.