When the Arab Awakening, later renamed Arab Spring, erupted in 2011, following an attempt by a Tunisian street vendor to immolate himself in December 2010, little did West African governments expect that the troubles engineered by North African masses protesting decades of poor leadership riddled with denials of fundamental rights would impact their nations. Nigeria became one of the sub-Saharan African nations to feel the ripples of the Arab Spring. This study, based on textual examination of current media and non-media sources, examines the challenges of security and development in North Africa from independence until the eruption of the Arab Spring. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the 2011 uprising on West Africa, especially Nigeria, and’outlines lessons the Nigeria Defence Industry can learn from the event.