ECOWAS: A way forward

Just like the 27-nation strong, European Union, the underlying thesis for rapprochement in the crisis confronting the 15-nation regional bloc of sovereign nations: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The crisis was triggered by the ECOWAS decision to suspend Burkina Faso, on January 28, 2022; Mali, on May 30, 2021; and Niger, on December 10, 2023 following the overthrow of democratically elected civilian governments in those countries. Guinea, was earlier suspended on September 8, 2021, for the same reason: toppling the elected civilian administration.

Arguably the most significant strategic challenge confronting the regional bloc since its inception on May 28, 1975, the trinity of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, exiting ECOWAS, issuing an incendiary joint statement to that effect on January 28, 2024, asserting that that they had “decided in complete sovereignty, on the immediate withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from ECOWAS”; “ECOWAS, under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its Member States and its populations whose happiness it is supposed to ensure.”

Whilst pragmatic democracy, certainly affords the people the choice of who leads them, civic participation, constitutional governance, ethical leadership, the rule of law, respect for human rights in progressive societies; and that constructive engagement, realpolitik, effective diplomacy surely must be the way forward upon a sensible balance of the competing risks and benefits of engaging the divergent (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) states; not least because on the regional security criterion, not a single ECOWAS member state could, singularly, “conquer the cascading scourge of extremist terrorism ravaging the region.”

Therefore, ECOWAS, needed to collaborate effectively by sharing intelligence, executing kinetic and non-kinetic operations, disrupting terrorist financing and weapons procurement mechanisms, and enforcing tougher immigration controls. Advancing the argument, collaboration amongst Member States was, and remains, pivotal to tackling the adverse consequences of climate change, desertification, environmental degradation; the balance of sovereign control of mineral resources and shaping mutually-beneficial economic strategies to alleviate poverty, improve education and health outcomes; which can only be achieved through effective rapprochement.

On that premise, is the striking import of the adage of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, the West African sub-region, Brazil, Cuba et al: agba kii wa loja, kii ori ómótun tun wóó. Loosely translated, it means that a responsible elder, will always act to save the life of an unwell child. In the context of this discourse, the unwell child is clearly ECOWAS, and the Elder Statesman who stepped in, as it were, to rescue the day, was the Sandhurst-trained (Rtd) General Yakubu Gowon.

General Gowon, was Nigeria’s military leader through 1966-1975 and is the sole surviving founding leader of ECOWAS. On February 13, 2024, he, quite unusually, wrote an impassioned open letter to all ECOWAS Heads of States calling on them to immediately consider: “1.) Lifting all sanctions that have been imposed on Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger; 2.) Withdrawal by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger of their notices to leave ECOWAS; and 3.) Participation of all 15 ECOWAS heads of state in a summit to discuss the future of the community, regional security and stability, as well as the role of the international community given the current geopolitical context…”

Less than a fortnight later on February 24, 2024, ECOWAS, under the Chairmanship of Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, convened an Extraordinary Summit. The key resolutions of which were the lifting of sanctions pertaining to: the closure of land and air borders, the moratorium on commercial, service and utility transactions; imposition of no flight zones between ECOWAS and Niger Republic. Plus, in an atmosphere of pragmatic rapprochement, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger, were invited to attend important ECOWAS security meetings.

These seminal and volatile dynamics establish important principles in realpolitik within the African geopolitical context. First, proactive civic participation by elder statesmen, lawyers and the fourth estate of the realm, an eternal vigilant press, is pivotal in strategic policy development generally and, in this context, regional/foreign policy development and nuanced realignment.

Second, ECOWAS, was able to achieve the significant thaw in icy relations between ECOWAS, Guinea and the trinity of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, without resorting to the European Union, the UN Security Council, NATO and others. Thereby, applying the communalism doctrine, and reflecting Africa’s capacity to solve African problems pragmatically.

Third, as the adage goes, there is strength in numbers. The virulent security challenges confronting the West African sub-region demands effective collaboration and coordination and strategic synergies are vital. This proposition is reinforced, in part, by the relative success of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a regional multilateral defence initiative, which helped to facilitate ending the Liberian Civil War (1989-1997), and containing conflicts in Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau, in 1997 and 1999, respectively.

Fourth, the legal and moral imperatives of elected democratic orthodoxies across ECOWAS States are certainly virtuous aspirations. Indeed, Article 4 (Fundamental Principles) (c), (j) of the Revised Ecowas Treaty of July 24, 1993 enunciates that: Member States “solemnly affirm and declare their adherence to the following principles…inter-State co-operation, harmonisation of policies and integration of programmes”; and the “promotion and consolidation of a democratic system of governance in each Member State.”

And, Article 58 (2) (g) of the revised ECOWAS Treaty, stipulates that Member States “undertake to cooperate with the Community in establishing, and strengthening appropriate mechanisms for the timely prevention and resolution of intra-State and inter-State conflicts…provide where necessary; and, at the request of Member States, assistance to Member States for the observation of democratic elections….”

Nevertheless, the extant ECOWAS crisis, and rapprochement, by logical inference, re-establishes the principle that each Member State has the freedom to determine its functional governance modus operandi. The question of whether a government assumed power by means of a transparent participatory democratic order, or, via vaunted “reformist” military dictatorship, is now, effectively, a side issue in the ECOWAS context! That said, there remains a lingering question as to what, if any, precedential parameters are established by this dynamic, across ECOWAS states. Food for thought for all!

Fifth, although ECOWAS imposed sanctions against the quartet of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger, the practical effects were unclear. Because, the evidence suggests that economic sanctions against pariah regimes are hardly effective if the precedents of the UN arms embargo against apartheid South Africa in 1963 are anything to go by. That embargo did little to impede South Africa’s formidable military build-up. Plus, decades of American economic embargoes against Cuba’s Fidel Castro (1926-2016), did little to cripple that country’s economy. More recently, the combined effects of American and European sanctions have done little to imperil Russia’s war against Ukraine which began on February 24, 2022.

Finally, de facto ECOWAS rapprochement with the Guinea and the triad of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, although far from perfect, is certainly a nuanced strategic victory for constructive engagement, effective mediation, pragmatism and smart politics, especially given the unique regional geopolitical context.

As Winston Churchill intoned, “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” On this occasion, ECOWAS leaders have acted courageously by listening to the voices of reason and reversing its earlier sanctions on the quartet of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger in the overriding interests of regional cooperation, peaceful coexistence and reconciliation. It is a welcome development which other trouble spots around the world could certainly learn from.

Certainly, ECOWAS formally approved the exit of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso from the bloc on December 15, 2024, however, those countries still have the opportunity to reconsider.

An important lesson is gained from Greek mythology, asserted in part, under the agency of Aesop’s fable of the “Bundle of Sticks”: it reinforces the power of unity. Independently, a stick may be fragile and limp, however, brigaded, they form a robust critical mass.
Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, and the author of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, Foreign Relations, Jurisprudence and National Development