ECOWAS standby force: New wine in old wine skin (1), By Jideofor Adibe

When Professor Sam Amadi, Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, and veteran public analyst, requested that I should make a presentation on the subject of ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) in the fight against violent conflicts and terrorism in the sub-region, I did not need to be persuaded before I accepted.  Among other reasons, I am the editor-in chief of the Journal of African Union Studies – which is probably the only high-impact academic journal that is dedicated to the study of the African Union, its eight Regional Economic Communities (which includes ECOWAS) and bi-national commissions in the continent. The journal, which was founded in 2012 and is one of the 27 high-impact journals from the stable of Adonis & Abbey Publishers, is indexed in most of the world’s leading databases including SCOPUS, IBSS, JSTOR, COPERNICUS and ERIH PLUS. It is ranked by SCimago Journal Ranking and accredited by DHET (the regulator of Higher Education in South Africa) and UGC CARE (the regulator of Higher Education in India). Given that the subject of ‘standby force’ both for the African Union and its RECs is a popular topic in the journal, it will be fair to assume that I am fairly well exposed to the conversations around the topic.

A starting point will be to pose the question of what is really a ‘standby force’?

Since the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945, there have been conversations on how the world body can best respond to global crisis –  on time and efficiently.  Two prominent models were canvassed – “Standing” or “Standby” arrangements. The “standing forces” are supposed to be trained, paid, and commanded by the UN, while “standby forces” consist of donated materials, and volunteer troops earmarked for U.N. duty, but are supported, trained, and commanded by their respective national authorities before deployment. ‘Standby’ arrangements are context specific whether you are talking of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Response Force (NRF), the European Battlegroups (EUBG), United Nations Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System (PCRS), or the African Standby Force (ASF). The notion of ECOWAS Standing Force (ESF) derives its legitimacy largely from the ASF.

It should be recalled that in 2001, the African Union replaced the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as the continent’s foremost supranational entity. The preceding OAU did not provide for collective security essentially because members were more interested in guarding their newly won independence through the doctrine of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. But in 2001, after the AU replaced it, and with events like the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the non-interference clause of the OAU was seen as no longer adequate. The Constitutive Act now gave the AU the right to intervene in a member state in grave circumstances, namely to prevent war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.  This move by the newly birthed AU (from the womb of the OAU) actually preceded the better known Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) doctrine –  a global political commitment, which was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit in order to address four key concerns on preventing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

In the same 2001, the AU came up with a new African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) designed to build and strengthen African capacities for managing and resolving conflicts on the continent. The APSA comprises five pillars: A Peace and Security Council, a Continental Early Warning System, a Panel of the Wise, a Peace Fund, and an African Standby Force. The final concept for the ASF, presented in the Maputo Report of July 2003, provided for five regional Standby Brigade forces – A North Africa Regional Standby Brigade (NASBRIG), an East Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG); a Force Multinationale de l’Afrique Centrale (FOMAC); a Southern Africa Standby Brigade (SADCBRIG); and an ECOWAS Standby Brigade (ECOBRIG). The authority to deploy the ASF was supposed to reside with the Peace and Security Council of the AU.

Since every ‘standby force’ is supposed to be region specific, the ASF, by emphasizing uniformly trained standby forces, which would be multidimensional (or multidisciplinary) involving the military, the police and civilians, was conceived more as a Standing Force than a Standby Force (in classical definition).

The ESF operates within the framework of the ASF. Like the ASF, it is supposed to be a uniformly trained Force, which is multidisciplinary – (with military, police and civilian components). A partial legal basis is also given by Article 21 of the ECOWAS Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security of December 1999. The ESF was declared fully operational in 2016. In 2017, the force’s capabilities were used to plan and deploy an Economic Community of West African States’ Mission to The Gambia (ECOMIG). It should be recalled that during ECOMIG about 7,000 troops as well as air and naval assets from Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal entered The Gambia on January 19, 2017. Its mandate was to ensure that Adama Barrow was sworn in as the new President of the country after the incumbent Yahya Jammeh, who lost the election, refused to vacate office.  Both the African Union and the ECOWAS had recognized Barrow as the duly elected President. As the ECOWAS troops reached the capital, Banjul, Jammeh stepped down and left the country. Following his departure, 4,000 ECOWAS troops remained in The Gambia to maintain order in preparation for Barrow to return from Senegal (where he was sworn in) and consolidate his presidency. The decision of the AU and ECOWAS to recognize Adama Barrow was boosted when the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2337, proposed by Senegal, which endorsed those decisions. There are two crucial questions here: Would ECOMIG have succeeded if the UNSC was antagonistic? And will ECOWAS, in the current political climate in both Nigeria (the group’s powerhouse) and in the sub-region (given the exit of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from the group, and its aftermath) be able to repeat a similar military intervention? Remarkably ECOMIG was ECOWAS’s last ‘hallelujah’ moment.

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu became Chairman of the Authority of Heads of States and Government of the regional body, there has been much talk about an ECOWAS Standby Force, with some wrongly making it seem like a novel initiative while others discuss it as if it is the magic bullet that would destroy violent conflicts and terrorism in the sub-region. For instance, in December 2023, there were newspaper headlines that ECOWAS leaders resolved to urgently review efforts to activate a standby force for counterterrorism operations in areas infested by terrorist groups. Again the ECOWAS Commission made another news headlines when it organised a one-day Workshop for the Validation of the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) Operational Framework from (May 29 to May 31 2024). The workshop supposedly marked the final phase of a comprehensive review process aimed at adapting the ESF Operational Framework to address contemporary security and political challenges in the region. Similarly, during the 65th Session of the group in July 2024, President Tinubu re-echoed calls for a commitment and funding towards a “Regional Standby Force” and said the Community needs security and stability to achieve its potential. This raises a fundamental question of what is really new about the proposed ESF under Tinubu and whether it is merely new wine in old wineskin. To be continued next week.

A version of this article was presented on 12 September to the monthly Dialogue series of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts.

Jideofor Adibe is Professor of Political Science at Nasarawa State University, Keffi and founder of Adonis & Abbey Publishers. He can be reached at: pcjadibe@yahoo.com  or 07058078841 (WhatsApp or text messages only).