Tag: ECOWAS

*By Paul Ejime

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is 50 this year. However, for those who care about the future of the organisation once acclaimed as a trailblazer in regional economic integration, especially conflict management and resolution, the situation calls more for a deep reflection and introspection instead of popping Champagne cocks.

From the time when some of its member countries were under military dictatorships or with one rebel government in the bush and another in the state capital, ECOWAS managed to evolve to a period when all its 15 member States practised one form of democratic government or another.

For more than a decade after its formation on 28 May 1975 through the Treaty of Lagos, the organisation was seized with peace and security challenges involving sporadic conflicts and civil wars, beginning with the two civil wars in Liberia. Dozens of military coups also toppled elected governments.

On each occasion, ECOWAS leaders ensured there was an eventual return to constitutional rule, using regional instruments with the carrot and stick approach, including suspension of membership or imposition of sanctions on errant members where diplomacy failed.

But gradually, the regional leaders took their eyes off the ball, allowing unbridled alteration of national constitutions and election rigging for term elongation, gross violations of human rights, suppression of opposition and shrinking of the democratic space.

The democratic regression continued unabated, until 2020 when former Col now General Assimi Goita and his military colleagues led the coup that ousted the government of elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

By the middle of 2023, the region had witnessed more than half a dozen putsches, the game changer being on 26 July 2023 in Niger, led by the head of the country’s presidential guard General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who has since proclaimed himself the leader of a new military junta. Niger thus joined Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso as ECOWAS countries now under military dictatorships.

Instead of using its tried and tested strategies in whipping wayward member States into line, ECOWAS leaders mismanaged the situation by jumping headlong into the fray, imposing sweeping sanctions and threatening the use of military force to restore constitutional rule in Niger. Newly elected Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who was still fighting legal battles to secure his election was made Chairman of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government.

Perhaps to reciprocate that gesture, he caused Nigeria to suspend electricity supply to neighbouring Niger, even though the bilateral power supply agreement was not covered under any ECOWAS protocol.

Apart from the unpopular decision to use force in Niger, which was later abandoned, the role of France and its Francophone African allies, especially Cote d’Ivoire during the division between ECOWAS and its three Sahelian States of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, did not help matters.

In December 2023, the three, called the Alliance of Sahel States, or AES, served notice of their intention to quit ECOWAS “immediately.”
ECOWAS has since realised its mistake and changed tact, adopting diplomacy and negotiations to woo back the three countries, which have adamantly dug in their heels,

At their last summit in Abuja last December, ECOWAS leaders still gave the junta leaders a six-month “cooling period” to reconsider their decision to pull their countries out of ECOWAS, failing which the separation would be deemed to have started in January 2025.

Barring last ditch efforts, the divorce could mark an unprecedented turning point in the history in ECOWAS and regional integration in Africa, with potential far-reaching consequences.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, all landlocked countries, have expelled the troops of former colonial power, France, and the anti-French sentiments, which the junta leaders are riding on for their populist stance, have continued to grow.

The Senegal government of President Diomaye Faye, the ECOWAS Chief negotiator charged with convincing the three renegade countries to return to the fold, has also told Paris to close the French military base in the West African country and so has Chad, a non-ECOWAS member State.

General elections are due in Cote d’Ivoire this year and in what is seen as political expediency, or “a pre-emptive strike,” President Alassane Ouattara has also announced a phased withdrawal of French troops from one of the bases in the country.

But to put issues in context, it is the citizens of the Francophone countries that are behind the anti-French sentiments. They started the movement, before the military juntas joined.

Critics are unconvinced about the junta leaders’ sincerity of purpose. A critical examination of their careers would show that they are all beneficiaries of the French system. Several years after they seized power, there is little or no progress in their political transition programmes.

In clear violation of regional and continental protocols, they have also indicated their intention to stand as candidates in elections for transition to civilian rule, which many consider a sign they are bent to perpetuate themselves in power and not “liberators” as they claim.

The three countries still belong to the eight-nation West African Economic and Monetary Union, UEMOA, set up by France, which are members of ECOWAS and using the CFA franc, controlled by the French Treasury. The juntas grouse with ECOWAS, could be that it is the only organisation pressuring them to return to constitutional rule.
Zimbabwe’s diplomat, Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Qua, deserves much credit for consistently calling out the French for the “inhumane” colonial pacts it forced on leaders of former African colonies at independence. Through her, the outside world became aware that Paris was making some 500 billion dollars per year from the exploitation of Francophone Africa. Unsurprisingly, she was sacked from her role as the African Union’s representative to the United Nations in 2019.

In the assessment of ECOWAS’ performance, it is not all gloom and doom, but perhaps, the proverbial half-full or half-empty cup. However, the undeniable truth is that all is not well with the organisation. By its standards, ECOWAS has under-performed, particularly in the last decade.

In a dynamic world of shifting geopolitics and geostrategic ecosystem, with multilateralism yielding place to bilateral/unilateral pursuits and new nationalism, characterised by emerging global threats of terrorism, insurgencies, extremism, and the invasion of social media, disinformation/misinformation and fake news, it would be naive to expect ECOWAS to be static or immune to external influence/interference.

Organisations, such as the United Nations and even the European Union, which are reference points, experience a bad patch or “wilderness” period. But life coaches will tell you that ‘it is not how many times you fall, but your ability to rise from each fall that determines your strength, sustainability and future.’

Applying this maxim to ECOWAS, it is fair to say that while the organisation should be proud of its past achievements, such as the free movement of persons, goods and services, and the right to residence and establishment, the challenges and threats of regional disintegration are real and present.

While, pre- and immediate post-independent African leaders did the heavy lifting by ensuring that much of Africa and its people were emancipated from slavery and colonialism, many African countries are still dependent and contemporary African leaders have failed their people by being self-serving instead of giving meaning to the nominal independence of their countries.

For the wobbly ECOWAS, the worst-case scenario could be the eventual withdrawal of the three AES countries or the balkanisation of the economic bloc, which will be a major setback.

On a positive note, the presence of Burkina Faso’s junta leader Capt Ibrahim Traore at the inauguration of Ghana’s new President John Dramani Mahama on 7th January 2025 could be a silver lining. Ghana has demonstrated democratic maturity by successfully conducting the ninth cycle of general elections with the fourth peaceful transfer of power between ruling and opposition parties for 33 years since its return of the multiparty system in 1992.

For Mahama, it is a glorious comeback with an overwhelming victory of 56% vote and a commanding parliamentary majority, after a hung parliament and the best presidential outing since the country’s independence from Britain in 1957.

He could deploy his experience and work to bequeath indelible legacies to his country which prides itself as the Black Star of Africa. At the regional level, Mahama could also team up with his colleagues, particularly Nigeria’s President Tinubu to reposition and refocus ECOWAS on the dreams of its founding fathers.

Every organisation requires a pillar/leader, which ECOWAS has lacked over the past decade. Like their predecessors combined to galvanise other regional leaders to end the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Tinubu and Mahama owe their countries and the region the duty and responsibility to provide the necessary leadership that will prevent ECOWAS from disintegration. Tinubu as ECOWAS Chair was Guest of honour at Mahama’s inauguration.

*Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security, and Governance Communications*

By Paul Ejime

At 49, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should be celebrating based on its past achievements as the foremost among Africa’s eight Regional Economic Community (RECs).

However, the 15-nation regional economic bloc, once acclaimed as a trailblazer, is now fighting for survival and under serious threat of disintegration.
Since its establishment on *28 May 1975,* through the *Treaty of Lagos,* only Mauritania has pulled out of ECOWAS (in 2000) but is now seeking re-admission, while other countries, even outside the region, are also applying to join.

However, rather than building on its solid foundation, things seem to be falling apart for ECOWAS. Four of its member States – Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, are under military rule, while the last three have served notice of their intention to withdraw from the regional organization, altogether.

Granted the times and circumstances are different between 1975 and the ecosystem/dynamics of the World today.

There have been life-changing geopolitical and strategic shifts, characterized by emerging threats such as terrorism, violent extremism, economic recession, global pandemics, flaws of experimentation of democracy, environmental changes, high rates of unemployment, youth bulge, and technological advancements, particularly the invasion of social media, dis/misinformation, and fake news.

But effective performance under challenging circumstances is what sets individuals and organisations apart.

At a time when ECOWAS is expected to demonstrate visionary and dynamic leadership, it has been found wanting.

Ironically, the leadership deficit has been most pronounced in the peace and security, conflict prevention, management, and resolution domain, where ECOWAS had been most effective.

Whether by default or experimentation, ECOWAS leaders, mostly military officers at that time, could fashion effective tools such as the *ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG)* created in 1990 that facilitated the end of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The strict application of regional instruments, such as the Authority’s Declaration on Political Principles in 1991, the *ECOWAS Revised Treaty of 1993,* the *1999 Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security* (or *The Mechanism),* and the *Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance* adopted in 2001 as an integral part of *The Mechanism,* guided the construction of regional peace and security architecture.

The 1999 instrument inspired the adoption of a similar Mechanism by the African Union several years later.

Also, apart from an *Early Warning System,* which facilitated collaboration with state and non-state actors and civil society to monitor and report threats to peace and security in the region, ECOWAS utilized its *Mediation and Security Council* and the *Council of the Elders/Wise* as additional tools for conflict prevention, mediation, and resolution towards consolidating peace and security.

The *Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance* set minimum constitutional convergence criteria for ECOWAS membership based on shared values of democracy and free market, separation of powers, popular participation, the democratic control of the armed forces, guarantees of fundamental freedoms, and especially *’zero tolerance’* for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.

The *ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF),* adopted in 2008, and the *Monrovia Declaration of 2010,* are other instruments adopted to strengthen the ECOWAS peace and security architecture, with emphasis on preventive diplomacy and proactive mediation responses.

The organization has used a combination of the above-named instruments to resolve conflicts in member States including in Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Guinea Bissau, and The Gambia.

The applied measures included suspension, imposition of sanctions on erring member States or the refusal to send observers to Gambia’s 2011 presidential election, for lack of transparency under the regime of then-President Yahya Jammeh’s regime, now exiled in Equatorial Guinea.

However, the political will and/or capacity to make tough decisions based on principles are now lacking at the national and regional levels of ECOWAS leadership.

Political leaders/heads of State have hijacked control of ECOWAS institutions, particularly the Commission, thereby rendering the overstretched and capacity-challenged technocrats ineffective.

Critics now see ECOWAS more as a “toothless organization,” where political leaders hold sway for their selfish interests, including by unilaterally changing their countries’ constitutions and electoral laws, rigging elections, suppressing opposition, and trampling on citizens’ human rights in clear violation of ECOWAS texts and instruments with impunity and without consequences.

Meanwhile, the same leaders only become powerful in the condemnation and imposition of sanctions whenever the military seizes power from civilians.

The military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger cite this inconsistency by ECOWAS leaders as one of the reasons for their decision to pull out of the Organization.

Even so, military rule is not the solution to the myriad problems facing ECOWAS member states. If anything, the disposition of the juntas, especially their political transition programmes, may have revealed their real intentions, as opportunistic power grabbers on tenure elongation adventure, the same allegations they levelled against the civilian leaders.

The global decline in multilateralism, compounded by the geopolitical games being played by the superpowers, reminiscent of the Cold War era, is also present in the ECOWAS and Sahel region.

Centuries of imperialism and exploitation of Africa, especially by France in its former colonies, have combined with corruption and mismanagement by post-independence leaders to unleash poverty, inhumane conditions, deprivation, and bad governance on the long-suffering citizens.

The anti-French sentiment expressed by the population in the Francophone countries is justified, but with the long periods of transition and a provision that junta leaders are eligible to participate in the post-transition elections in respective countries, the soldiers would appear to be riding on the wave of sentiment and a false sense of popularity to want to perpetuate themselves in power.

Similarly, while sovereign States reserve the right to choose their bilateral partners, the juntas in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger, are not helping their case by replacing one foreign power with another, and at the same time accusing ECOWAS of being tele-guided by external powers.

ECOWAS faces existential threats due to acts of omission/commission by its leaders. Even so, the community of an estimated 400 million people can only achieve more in unity.

Dr Omar Alieu Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission, acknowledged this much in his message to mark ECOWAS’ 49th Anniversary.

“As we celebrate our 49th anniversary, insecurity continues to threaten our region. Some of our member States are battling terrorist groups on a daily basis, and a large number of our population faces displacement and food insecurity,” he said.

In the two-and-half-page message, where “unity” or “united” is mentioned seven times, Touray said: “It is clear that we must stay united if we want to be successful in the fight against insecurity. But it is our unity which now stands threatened.”

Quoting Nigeria’s former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, one of the founding fathers of ECOWAS, the Commission President said: “Neither the generation of our founding fathers, ‘nor the present or future generations can understand or will be forgiving for the breakup of our community.’”

In an interview that coincided with the ECOWAS anniversary, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace, and Security, quoting data from a survey by a non-profit *Afrobarometer* group, noted that despite the military incursions, and the weaknesses in the democratic practices, ECOWAS Community citizens were still positively disposed toward democracy.

While Liberia and Senegal have shown some prospects following their recent transparent elections and successful transfer of power from sitting governments to the opposition, Togo has thrown up another challenge with its divisive and controversial legislative vote held under dubious constitutional changes in clear violation of the ECOWAS protocol.

Other potential crisis points could be Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone, with lingering post-election rumblings, and then the Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ghana with forthcoming elections.

ECOWAS can still redeem itself. But it is all down to the courage in upholding its standard, the sincerity of regional leaders to stop corruption, respect national constitutions and the rule of law, stop rigging elections and providing citizens with the benefits of good governance.

**Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security and Governance Communications*

By Paul Ejime

Nigeria’s late Professor Adebayo Adedeji and Togo’s Edem (Kodjovi) Kodjo would likely be turning in their graves in disappointment if not utter shock at what has become of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which they laboured with others to establish in 1975.

After its civil war of 1967-70 and the uncoordinated support from foreign powers, the then-Federal Military Government of Nigeria under the leadership of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, wanted to recalibrate the country’s foreign policy thrust based on the concentric circle model, driven by the axiom that charity begins at home.

As a young military officer then, saddled with the huge task of governing a complex country like Nigeria, Gowon, now arguably the only surviving “founding father” of ECOWAS bought into the idea canvassed by international relations experts that Nigeria must first master the art of “a big fish in a small river, before rubbing shoulders with the Big Boys at the global stage.”

Adedeji, a brilliant, full-fledged professor of Economics at age 36, as Nigeria’s Federal Commissioner (Minister) of Economic Development and National Reconstruction (1971-75), sold his boss, Gen. Gowon the idea of a regional body with Nigeria as the hegemon.

Adedeji passed on in 2018, but his legacy as a development pioneer lives on.

Relating his experiences to an ECOWAS delegation, including this writer that visited him at his Ijebu-Ode home in Western Nigeria in 2013, he recalled the “marching order” given to him by Gen. Gowon to make ECOWAS a reality after he had convinced him about the need for an organization that would foster regional integration.

Given the cultural, language and colonial differences of countries in the region, Adedeji recalled the “shuttle diplomacy” he undertook to various capitals in his days as Minister and the pivotal roles played by Gen. Gowon and his Togolese counterpart Gnassingbé Eyadéma in the formation of ECOWAS.

The Anglophone-Francophone dichotomy and rivalry between France and Nigeria for regional influence dates back to the early post-independence period of African States, yet Eyadéma was the first convert to the Gowon-Adedeji idea of regional integration.

As Gowon did to Adedeji, Eyadéma volunteered Kodjo, who was his finance minister from 1973-77 and Foreign Minister from 1976-78 for the ECOWAS birthing project.
The two government ministers did not disappoint.

According to Adedeji, thanks to their relentless shuttles and diplomatic suavity, the *Lagos Treaty of 28th May 1975* on the establishment of ECOWAS was one of the few Treaties signed by all Heads of State at a sitting.

Senegal’s then-President Sedar Senghor was eventually convinced to abandon his initial reservations and after much persuasion, involving facilitating his transportation from Abidjan to Lagos and the concession of making an Ivorian the first Executive Secretary of ECOWAS, President Felix Houphouet Biogeny of Cote d’Ivoire also “suspended” his opposition to the ECOWAS idea in preference to the formation of a France-Afrique Union and joined other regional leaders to initial the Lagos Treaty.

ECOWAS Member States grew to 16, until the year 2000 when Mauritania left but now wants to rejoin. Other countries, even outside the region are also seeking ECOWAS membership.

However, like most inter-governmental organizations, ECOWAS has had its fair share of internal crises and divisions between and among Member States, but until recently, it had managed the conflicts, fault lines and differences effectively to record tremendous achievements as Africa’s trailblazer Regional Economic Community.

“This (ECOWAS) is the only region in Africa where citizens can visit and stay in a country other than their own for at least 90 days without a visa,” Adedeji had enthused in 2013, in a reference to the ECOWAS 1979 flagship Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Rights to Residence and Establishment.

Moving forward, Adedeji had enjoined ECOWAS Member States to work toward the harmonization of policies, laws, and regulations to consolidate regional integration.

He and Kodjo were able to take their visionary and dynamic Pan-Africanist advocacy beyond the West African region.

Mentioned in a 2006 publication as one of the world’s 50 influential thinkers on development, Adedeji after the setting up of ECOWAS advanced his integration campaign to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa where he served as UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary for 16 years (1975-91).

His dynamism under the UNECA platform also resulted in the creation of two more Regional Economic Communities (RECs) – the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in 1981 and 1983, respectively.

The professor will also be remembered for his other unique initiatives, such as the *Lagos Plan of Action (1980),* and the *Final Act of Lagos (1980).*

When the World Bank and the IMF hoisted the *Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)* on hapless so-called developing and least developed nations – many of which are in Africa – Adedeji and fellow pan-Africanist thinkers raised an alarm and developed the African Alternative Framework to *Structural Adjustment Programme (AAF-SAP, 1989)* followed by the *African Charter for Popular Participation (ACPP, 1990),* as legendary blueprints for the continent’s home-grown development and governance paradigms.

Kodjo, before he died in 2020, had also served as Togo’s 3rd Prime Minister from 1994-96 and before then, as finance and foreign minister (1973-77) and from 1978-83 as the 4th Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002.

He called it quits with internal politics in 2009, but until his death, continued to profess his pan-African beliefs despite his several unsuccessful attempts to be elected Togo’s president, and his controversial romance with the regimes of the late Eyadéma and his son, current President Faure Gnassingbe.

In 2016, Kodjo served as the African Union’s mediator in a dispute between the government and the opposition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the fixing of national elections.

Kodjo also founded a magazine, *Afrique (Africa) 2000* and in 1985 published a book, *Africa Tomorrow.*

The greatest tribute Africans can pay their departed great sons and daughters is to immortalise their pan-Africanist legacies, values, and selfless service to lift the people and continent from pervasive poverty, hunger, deprivation, backwardness, mismanagement, corruption, and underdevelopment.

However, it is doubtful whether Adedeji, Kodjo and their contemporaries would be proud of the present leadership of the AU and its eight RECs, including ECOWAS, which once received international acclaim for achievements, especially in conflict prevention, management, and resolution.

The same ECOWAS that ended the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and resolved conflicts in other Member States now appears spineless and even unable to issue a statement or take any effective actions against member States that violate its protocols/instruments.

Particularly worrisome is Nigeria’s palpable weakness and incapacity to play its role as a regional hegemon, despite its strategic position, quality of human capital and the size of its population, (more than 220 million out of Africa’s estimated 1.3 billion people are Nigerians).

The AU and its RECs require visionary and dynamic leaders to put Africa in its rightful place among the regions of the World.

Those in leadership positions in Africa must be reminded that it is not about themselves, but the future of a continent and its people, who “labour like elephants but eat like rats.”

Thousands of African youths are dying on perilous journeys to escape from the continent, endowed with abundant natural resources.

African rulers must change their ways; lead by example and educate themselves on the goals and objectives of pro-people Pan-Africanism. Africa is not poor, but badly managed/governed. Its present situation is unjustifiably unsatisfactory and must change for the better.

The citizens themselves must elect servant leaders and demand accountability from them.

In the same vein, given the hope pinned on Nigeria by Africans and Blacks worldwide, the country and its leadership must rise above internal crises or divisions to play its destined role as a regional hegemon, from ECOWAS to the continental level and beyond.

**Ejime is an Author, Global Affairs Analyst, and Consultant on Peace & Security and Governance Communications*