Declassified U.S. memo reveals population control strategy in Nigeria — And How Tinubu’s policies align with it

In 1974, a confidential U.S. policy document titled National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), also known as the Kissinger Report, was drafted under the direction of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Its contents, now declassified, reveal a chilling strategic focus: Nigeria’s population and natural resources posed a potential threat to U.S. economic and security interests  not due to instability, but because Nigerians might consume more of their own wealth.

At the time, Nigeria had just over 60 million people. The  memo report projected rapid growth, framing it not as a developmental achievement but as a risk to the flow of oil, gas, and minerals to the United States. The solution? Population control via foreign aid, healthcare programs, and economic partnerships all under the guise of humanitarian concern.

At the center of this memo was Nigeria, identified as one of 13 countries where rapid population growth posed a “threat” to U.S. security  not due to war or instability, but because a larger Nigerian population might consume too much of its own oil, gas, and minerals.

“Unchecked demographic expansion,” the report warned, could “reduce the flow of vital commodities to the United States.”

Today, Nigeria’s population exceeds 220 million, with an enormous youth demographic and widespread economic hardship.

Yet, according to a recent investigation by West Africa Weekly, the legacy of NSSM 200 continues now repackaged through modern health and economic programs led by Western institutions.

Key organizations named in the report include:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

• Pfizer

• CIFF

• USAID

• UNFPA

• World Bank

• GAVI

These bodies are allegedly flooding sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria, with long-acting contraceptives such as Sayana Press injectables, IUDs, and implants. These contraceptives are cheap, often subsidised, and targeted mainly at low- and lower-middle-income countries.

The memo report ,Although branded as tools of empowerment, critics argue that these programs exclude African leadership and consent, pressuring women into one-size-fits-all contraceptive solutions. Some cases involve IUDs or injections administered during emergencies or childbirth with minimal counselling or informed consent.

“They call it ‘choice,’ but the only option they push is long-acting contraception. That’s not a choice  that’s pressure,” one health rights advocate told West Africa Weekly.

Since taking office, President Bola Tinubu has been praised by Western financial institutions for implementing currency devaluation and fuel subsidy removals policies that align closely with IMF and World Bank prescriptions.

But the impact on ordinary Nigerians has been devastating:

• Soaring inflation

• Increased poverty

• Decreased purchasing power

• Dependence on foreign loans

• Continued export of crude oil, while refined fuel is imported at premium prices

Meanwhile, Tinubu’s government has offered tax breaks and incentives to Western oil companies, even as communities in the Niger Delta suffer environmental degradation and neglect.

“Tinubu’s economic decisions appear to be directly fulfilling the two primary goals of the Kissinger Report: keep Nigeria politically stable enough to extract resources, but economically weak enough to remain dependent.”

The Kissinger Report envisioned a world where foreign aid is not charity, but a strategic tool.

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Population policies, development loans, and health programs are all used as levers to influence domestic policy, subtly maintaining control over key resource nations like Nigeria.

“It’s not colonisation by conquest anymore it’s colonisation through contracts, through syringes, through spreadsheets.”

Despite decades of independence, critics argue that Nigeria’s leadership continues to operate within a framework designed in Western capitals. American fears of Nigeria’s demographic strength have been redirected into economic strategies and health campaigns, not to benefit Nigerians, but to protect Western consumption patterns.

Tinubu’s supporters claim the current reforms are “painful but necessary.”

However, history suggests that such reforms  when externally dictated tend to privatise profits and socialise pain.

As oil flows out and debt piles up, Nigerians are being asked to tighten their belts for a system built to serve others first.

Until Nigeria breaks free from the policy models laid out in documents like NSSM 200, its future risks becoming a perpetual footnote in someone else’s strategy paper.

Unless Nigeria fundamentally reorients its policies to serve its citizens first  in health, economics, and development the country risks remaining a resource colony, managed not by guns or soldiers, but by memos, contracts, and development plans written abroad.

“The real threat to Nigeria was never its population growth. It was and still is  the willingness of its leaders to manage that growth in ways that serve outside powers first.”