By Oumarou Sanou
There is nothing wrong with urging Nigerian youth to look past Britain, America and Canada, or with Russia offering scholarships to African students. Young Nigerians deserve every legitimate route to education the world can offer. But there is everything wrong with dismissing documented security concerns as “propaganda” simply because the offer arrives wrapped in the language of mentorship.
A recent online discussion by the Arewa Youth Mentorship Program did exactly that, urging Northern Nigerian youth toward Russia while waving away fears about the Ukraine war as fear-mongering. The pitch was seductive: no IELTS, no international passport at first instance, no punishing recommendation letters, just a strong “portfolio” and the confidence to apply. It is a comforting story. On the evidence, it is also a dangerous one, and the danger lies not in Russia offering scholarships but in telling young people they need not verify them.
We need a reminder about the scholarship that became a factory floor. Nigerians and Africans have not forgotten Alabuga. Online adverts promising paid education and vocational training at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone lured young Africans, many of them women, into facilities later tied to the assembly of Shahed attack drones used against Ukraine, a scheme slick enough to compromise the website of Nigeria’s own Ministry of Education. The lesson is not that Russian opportunities should be avoided outright, but that the label “opportunity” is not evidence of safety. A polished portal is not verification. It is, at best, unproven, and at worst, bait.
More importantly, the numbers are no longer a rumour. An INPACT investigation, cited in Global Sentinel reporting, found that at least 1,417 Africans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Kenyans, Ugandans and South Africans among them, joined Russian military formations between 2023 and 2025, with no fewer than 316 killed in Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence separately counts over 200 Nigerians who signed contracts with Russia’s defence ministry, dozens already dead or missing. These figures deserve scrutiny, but they are too serious to dismiss, particularly against Moscow’s denials, including a Russian diplomat’s assurance in Accra that African students were “safe,” and the Nigerian ambassador’s own insistence in Abuja that no such recruitment exists. Casualties do not lie the way denials do.
This is how the trick works, and the pattern, documented across multiple investigations, is depressingly consistent. A job or study offer arrives via WhatsApp, Telegram, or Facebook, not from an embassy or accredited institution. Travel is arranged quickly, often through a third country, to dodge scrutiny. On arrival, passports are collected “for processing” and never returned. Within days the promised job evaporates, and the recruit faces a choice: sign a military contract in a language he cannot read, face deportation with debt, or worse. Nigerian mechanic Bankole Manchi told Global Sentinel he travelled to Russia expecting employment and, instead, found himself in a military-style camp, later deployed to the front. This is not misfortune. It is a supply chain, built on young Africans not asking questions first.
Investigators have also flagged the so-called Russian Houses, cultural centres that legitimately teach language and offer scholarships but, unlike the British Council or the Goethe-Institut, operate through an opaque franchise model that lets private, sometimes militarily linked, actors act in Moscow’s name. At the same time, the state keeps its hands clean. In Ghana, university partnerships have been linked to the enlistment of hundreds, dozens now dead. This does not mean every Russian cultural centre is a recruitment centre. It means governments should demand transparency wherever public trust and vulnerable youth are involved.
The key issue here when dealing with Russia and other emerging powers from a pan-African perspective is sovereignty, not substitution. There is a wider context Nigerians cannot ignore. Russia has marketed itself across the Sahel as the anti-imperial alternative to a West weighed down by colonial guilt and failed interventions, and the message has won real disciples. But a power that fills its trenches with African bodies while denying it does so is practising the oldest imperialism of all. Anti-Western is not the same as pro-African.
Nor should young Nigerians accept a false choice between “Western propaganda” and “Russian truth.” Every external power,-Russia, China, France, Britain, the United States- pursues its own interests in Africa and can deploy disinformation when it suits them. The question worth asking of any offer, wherever it originates, is simple: what is the strategic interest behind this opportunity, and who benefits if I do not check? Asking that of Moscow is not anti-Russian. It is pro-African and pro-sovereignty, andNigeria’s youth are entitled to exercise it. Strategic autonomy means diversifying partnerships from a position of informed national interest, not swapping one uncritical dependency for another.
Going forward, the approach should be to verify first, and trust second. Therefore, the Arewa panellists are right that Nigerian youth should be intentional and strategic. But intentionality means verification, not enthusiasm. Check the university and its accreditation against the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Scholarship Board and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Confirm the offer with the institution and the embassy before booking a flight, not after. Establish who is paying for travel and tuition, and read every document before signing. No genuine opportunity requires surrendering a passport indefinitely, concealing the purpose of travel, or signing contracts you cannot understand. A recruiter who pushes for haste or discourages official checks has already told you what you need to know.
This obligation extends to those doing the recommending. Academics, mentors, religious and traditional leaders and youth organisations carry real influence, and their endorsement can confer legitimacy an applicant would never independently investigate. That influence demands a duty to vet before endorsing.
Against this backdrop, what the government owes its citizens is protection through a verifiable database on foreign scholarships. Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued warnings before. One young man from Ondo State signed his contract with Russia’s military barely a week after such a warning was published, and died near Kharkiv weeks later. He may never have seen it. The state cannot keep issuing statements into the void. It needs a living, public database of verified foreign scholarships, rapid alerts when a scheme is flagged, and closer scrutiny of recruitment channels operating through cultural and educational fronts.
There is no contradiction between encouraging Nigerian youth to pursue Russian education and warning them about fraudulent recruitment. Nigeria should encourage its youth to explore the world, not fear it, but exploration without verification can quietly become exploitation.
Africa’s youth must not become cannon fodder in other people’s wars or raw material for competing geopolitical projects, under whichever flag those projects fly. The real test of mentorship is not how many young people are persuaded to travel abroad, but how many can tell opportunity from entrapment, and partnership from dependency.
Explore widely. Dream boldly. But verify everything. When the price of an opportunity is your judgement, it was never an opportunity at all.
Sanou is a social critic, Pan-African observer and researcher focusing on governance, security, and political transitions in the Sahel. He writes on geopolitics, regional stability, and African leadership dynamics. Contact: sanououmarou386@gmail.com
