*By Paul Ejime
Ahead of the 29 January 2025 deadline for their self-imposed exit from ECOWAS, the junta leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the Alliance of Sahel States, AES, have become jittery, deploying every trick, including disinformation, misinformation and blackmail to deflect blame for the inevitable consequences and uncertainty of their military adventure.
ECOWAS leaders at their last Abuja summit in December 2024 warned the three countries that having served notice of their withdrawal from the regional bloc in January 2024, the separation will become effective 12 months later, according to the regional bloc’s relevant protocol. This is despite the grace period of six months mentioned in the summit Communique. After receiving official correspondence from the ECOWAS Commission on the summit’s decision, the juntas have gone into propaganda overdrive.
(Picture (L-R) President Tinubu, ECOWAS Chair, Junta Leaders Assimi Goita (Mali), Ibrahim Traore (Burkina Faso) & Abdourahamane Tchiani (Niger).
For context, Niger is a country that has benefitted and continues to reap from Nigeria’s generosity including infrastructural development such as the rail system, electricity supply and new road networks. When ECOWAS leaders toyed with the idea of using military force to restore constitutional order in Niger following the August 2023 military coup led by Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, Nigerians were among the strongest opponents of the move arguing that seven Nigerian states shared borders and affinity with Niger.
It is therefore ludicrous for Tchiani to be accusing Nigeria of collaborating with France to destabilise Niger. In reality, the three AES countries are landlocked, and the Tchiani-led junta has fallen out with authorities in Benin Republic, a neighbouring country. In addition to their border dispute, Niger no longer has access to the Benin port for its imports and this has resulted in severe hardship in Niger, charactised by scarcity of essential goods, run-away inflation, high unemployment, a dysfunctional healthcare system and avoidable deaths in hospitals.
Instead of addressing their domestic existential threats, coupled with criticism of human rights violations and intolerance of dissent, Tchiani and his colleagues in Mali and Burkina Faso are blaming outsiders for the humanitarian crisis they brought on their people.
ECOWAS might have made a mistake by attempting to use military force on Niger without exhausting other available options. However, military rule is an aberration in today’s World and the organisation has since changed tact, using diplomacy instead, to engage its four member States under military rule, including Guinea.
Yet, the three junta leaders are unyielding. Meanwhile, the appalling security situation, one of the reasons the military rulers gave for toppling the civilian governments has not improved. Armed groups are still inflicting heavy casualties on civilians and soldiers in the three countries.
The AES juntas claim to detest France, but their countries are still members of the Francophone West African Economic and Monetary Union, UEMOA, supported by Paris. They are also still using the franc CFA currency, controlled by the French Treasury.
It is interesting that after agreeing on new national passports that will not bear the ECOWAS insignia, the junta leaders have announced that ECOWAS citizens can visit their three countries without a visa, which is consistent with the ECOWAS 1979 free movement protocol, a case of eating their cake and having it.
ECOWAS at 50 this year, cannot claim to be perfect. One of its major problems is leadership at the national and regional levels. But just as a chain is as strong as its weakest link, an organisation is only as good/effective as its weakest member.
ECOWAS evolved from the ashes of military dictatorships, however, in the last 12 years, the malaise of sit-tight syndrome, state capture, indiscriminate altering of national constitutions, election rigging, stifling of opposition and personalisation of democracy” crept in.
Critics now see the regional economic bloc once praised for its track record in conflict management and resolution as a club of self-serving leaders lacking the political will to end “political or constitutional coups,” which are as dangerous if not deadlier than military coups. But the solution is not in more coups, civilian or military. Urgent collective and deliberate measures are required to arrest the slide in the interest and benefit of community citizens in the “ECOWAS of People”.
The statement credited recently to the Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey to the effect that Togo could join the AES countries, requires further interrogation since the Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe and his Senegalese counterpart Diomaye Faye are the ECOWAS envoys negotiating rapprochement with the AES group.
Is Faure running with the hare and hunting with the hound? Last year, his government carried out controversial changes to Togo’s constitution and conducted widely criticised legislative elections, believed to pave the way for his tenure elongation in violation of regional protocols. Togo has covertly offered the AES countries access to its Lome port and recently, all four countries had a joint military exercise. Could Togo’s reported plan to join the AES group, Faure’s ploy to pre-empt ECOWAS’ attempt to question his dodgy democratic credential Faure’s political ambition?
There is a strong anti-French sentiment in Francophone African countries linked to controversial colonial agreements including defence/military pacts, which the AES leaders are capitalising on for their populist dispositions. The agreements have nothing to do with ECOWAS, so it begs the question that the AES leaders are blaming the organisation for them.
To come clean of accusations of foreign influence/interference, ECOWAS must assert its independence and put its house in order but not succumb to blackmail. The organisation should innovate and reinvent itself to withstand emerging threats from the geopolitical and geostrategic shifts in international relations ecosystem.
ECOWAS leaders should be pulling together, including reaching an agreement on the term limit for the President/Prime Minister in Member States, to stop the tenure elongation syndrome haemorrhaging the organisation. They should deliver good governance and muster the political will to end political or constitutional coups and other causes/enablers of military coups.
Ghana’s new President John Mahama has named a Special Envoy to the AES countries. The Ghanaian leader should be encouraged to work within the ECOWAS system to prevent a further weakening of the organisation.
Also, Nigeria as the “big brother, regional power” and the current ECOWAS Chair, should step up to the plate and work with other leaders to champion the rescue and repositioning of ECOWAS.
Membership of a united ECOWAS provides unlimited opportunities for regional cooperation and development. ECOWAS/AES’ separation will unleash potential negative consequences on the population of the AES countries, including massive loss of jobs from the closure of Community institutions and humanitarian food reserve facilities. Also, there will be an end to the benefits of regional free trade scheme and the immediate recovery of more than US$273 million at the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) loans and liabilities.
A sudden exit from the ECOWAS Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering (GIABA), will also make the AES countries vulnerable to the global Finance Action Task-force (FATF) sanctions, plus an end to regional security cooperation, shared intelligence and coordinated joint military operations, which will make the countries easy targets for more deadly attacks by terrorist and armed insurgency groups.
Addressing the media in Abuja on Monday 27 January, the Head of EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ambassador Gautier Mignot urged ECOWAS to reconsider its decision on the AES group.
“It is a decision that we regret because we strongly support West African integration. Splitting does not seem to us a good idea,” said the envoy, who cited the EU’s experience with Brexit, based on negotiation and dialogue.
The junta leaders should also take a cue from the EU official’s counsel, bearing in mind that they will be held accountable for the consequences of dragging millions of their compatriots into socioeconomic catastrophe and political uncertainty.
ECOWAS is only demanding that they respect regional protocols and honour their countries’ obligations and commitment to democratic principles instead of sticking to endless opportunistic political transition programmes designed for their self-perpetuation in power.
It is within the rights of AES nations to associate or pursue common goals, but not necessarily by quitting ECOWAS. Organisations such as the Mano River Union; Lake Chad Basin Commission/Authority, the Zone of Prosperity and UEMOA, are all members of ECOWAS.
*Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security, and Governance Communications*
