ECOWAS continues its blunders as West Africa splits, By Owei Lakemfa

West Africans on 7 July, witnessed the tragic split of their region into two opposing blocs. The first time since the 1975 establishment of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Eleven regional Heads of State met in Abuja under the ECOWAS umbrella while three of their counterparts; Presidents Assimi Goita of Mali, Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso and Abdourahamane Tchiani, Niger, met in Niamey for the inaugural Summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Given these separate meetings, the matter is no longer a question of recalling those three countries, or their returning to ECOWAS. It became more an issue of how to merge both organisations that are developing different structures and have two diametrically opposed political views.

The ECOWAS, which is set in its old bureaucratic ways, is more conservative with clear pro-West sympathies. In contrast, the AES, which is manifesting more radical inclinations, seems impatient with economic and political integration and is manifestly pro-East.

While the latter has made up its mind to move on and may want other countries to join it, the ECOWAS is playing an elder brother’s role of urging its siblings to return to the homestead. But in doing so, ECOWAS does not seem to understand that as far as the AES members are concerned, they are fighting a war of survival in which they are in the firing sights of France and the United States. Also, ECOWAS seems oblivious of the fact that the troika have rejected the old model of trade in which the underdeveloped countries are brutally exploited and impoverished by the West. For instance, Niger Republic is irritated that while it is the fourth largest producer of uranium in the world and lights up one third of France, 80 per cent of its populace has no electricity. So it had to rely on neighbouring Nigeria for electricity supply, which was cut off following the 26 July, 2023 coup. It is also angry that while additionally, the country is rich in gold, iron ore, phosphate, tin, salt, gypsum and petroleum, Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world. Furthermore, it was unhappy that while its territory had been turned into French and American military bases, terrorists and bandits were freely running around.

Burkina Faso does not see why as one of the largest producers of gold, copper, zinc, manganese, limestone and phosphate, 40 per cent of its populace should live below the poverty line. Similarly, Mali is angry that despite its huge gold, marble, salt and kaolin deposits, 42.5 per cent of Malians are under the poverty line. So, they not only decided that the trade relations with the rest of the world should change, but that they also need an urgent mutual defence pact to jointly tackle the terrorist challenge they face.

ECOWAS seems comfortable with such exploitative trade relations. It also seems at home issuing bland statements and declarations. For instance, its 7 July communiqué contained flat statements like welcoming “the positive economic outlook for ECOWAS in 2024” noting “the persistent inflationary pressures and growing public debt ratio” and, asking Member States to continue implementing economic and financial policies “that will lead to compliance with the macroeconomic convergence.”

The ECOWAS lack of seriousness was visible last week on the basic issue of a common currency, the Eco. It had announced its birth in 2000 and, promised to introduce it in 2003. But last week, two dozen years later, it was just directing its Commission to submit a “draft Supplementary Act defining the modalities for the participation of Member States in the Monetary Union at its first Ordinary Session in 2025.”

So, when ECOWAS declares it wants the three countries back, what is it offering them? Security? Economic, political or currency integration? Better economic integration or a common front against exploitation?

Unsurprisingly, ECOWAS is bungling even the issue of setting up a team to negotiate with the AES countries. The basic ECOWAS claim against them and why it decided to sanction them was allegedly because they are military regimes whereas ECOWAS is wedded to constitutional rule.

ECOWAS choice of Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye as its facilitator with the three countries, is brilliant. He symbolises the insistence of the populace to exercise sovereignty over who presides over their affairs. Even after then President Macky Sall had thrown Faye and his pro-democracy comrades into prison in a vain attempt to stop their election, ECOWAS, rather than condemn, was praising Sall as a fine democrat and, encouraging: “him to continue to defend and protect Senegal’s long-standing democratic tradition.” Despite these obstacles, Faye moved from prison to the Presidential Palace.

But the ECOWAS choice of two coup plotters; President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé of Togo, and Guinea Bissau’s General Umaro Sissoco Embaló, as co-facilitators, were blunders.

Faure’s father, General Gnassingbé Eyadema who had on April 14, 1967 overthrown the Togolese government, died in office on 5 February, 2005 after 38 years in power. Faure immediately overthrew the government. When some countries denounced his coup, he was forced to step down. But his regime immediately organised elections and he was declared elected. After nineteen years in power, Faure in April, 2024, changed his country’s constitution from Presidential to parliamentary, a move which extended his stay in office to 2031 after which he could be appointed into the new position of President of the Council of Ministers.

In his own case, retired General Embaló had been elected President on 20 December, 2019. In May, 2022, when he had differences with the parliament, he dissolved it and ruled as a dictator. But when new parliamentary elections were conducted, his party lost. A clash in December, 2023 between the National Guard and the Presidential Guard in which two persons were killed, provided Embalo an excuse to again, dissolve the parliament. It was his second coup against the constitution. Unfortunately, ECOWAS has continued to support this civilian coup in Guinea Bissau.

At its meeting last week, rather than demand that the Embalo regime allow the parliament to reconvene and continue its constitutional duties, the ECOWAS Heads of State urged: “the Government to accelerate the process of holding new legislative elections to re-establish the Popular National Assembly…”

The choice of Faure and Embalo as part of the three-person ECOWAS team to facilitate negotiations with the AES, is an avoidable blunder.

At the AES inauguration, Captain Traoré thundered: “The imperialists see Africa as an empire of slaves (that) Africans belong to them, our land belongs to them, our sub-soils belong to them…this is why we have decided to revolt and to take the fate of our countries in our own hands…we came to break the chains.” Is this a voice ECOWAS recognises and wishes to accommodate?

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.