ECOWAS: As Tinubu’s 1st tenure ends

There is a viral video of the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, arriving at the Ouagadougou Airport and being shunned by Burkinabe ministers who refused to shake his hand, as their leader, Ibrahim Traore, looked on. The video supposedly illustrates the fact that all is not well with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) since the Sahel coups and the series of sanctions slammed on the coupists, leading to the famous declaration by Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in January, 2024, that they would be leaving to form their own fringe group instead.

The real story behind the video, however, has less to do with ECOWAS and more to do with the comment the Ghanaian president made over the alleged flirtation of Burkina Faso with Russian mercenaries and the implication for the war on terror in the region.

Still, the last one year has tested the unity of the regional group more than any other period in its nearly 50 years of chequered growth.

By the time President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was handed the reigns in July, 2023, at the 63rd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, barely two months after he won a fiercely contested election in Nigeria, the ECOWAS community was facing some dire crises. Three member states, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea had seen five coups in three years. Mali was moreover beset by a jihadist insurgency across some of its 4,500 miles of porous borders and the violence spread to Guinea and Burkina Faso so that, “The Sahel region now ranks as the world’s epicentre of terrorism,” according to the Global Terrorism Index.

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Drought had also led to famine in these landlocked states and the millions of displaced persons presented an impossible refugee crisis. Indeed, the whole West African region was going through severe economic downturn, and the almost universally poor leadership had worsened the poverty,

In his very first speech as chairman, President Tinubu acknowledged that democracy had not been as successful as it should be in the region, but said it remained “the best form of government” despite “being tough to manage.”

Flush from his own victory in Nigeria’s redoubtable presidential poll, Tinubu gushed that the region was set to set an example for the rest of Africa and for the world. “We will not allow coup after coup in West Africa,” he warned.

Almost as if on cue, two weeks later, a coup led by General Abdourahmane Tchiani toppled the government of Mohamed Bazoum in Niger and thus began a firestorm of events that may come to define the first tenure of President Tinubu as chair of the regional body.

In its initial response, ECOWAS under its new chairman, who had promised to give no quarter to coupists, was decisive, even dismissive, giving the junta all of seven days to step down and return Bazoum to power. Tinubu’s anger was palpable, as was his concern that another coup in the Sahel could cause a domino effect. “They cannot use the gun given to them to protect the sovereignty of the country and turn it against the people of the country,” he vowed.

Tinubu received justifiable praise from the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), United States (US) government and the international community. As the German Ambassador to Nigeria, Annett Gunter, said recently, “President Tinubu had made it clear that ECOWAS will not tolerate such actions, and I think that is the right approach. Democracy is a fundamental principle of ECOWAS and it is essential to uphold it.”

Soon after, however, things got complicated. The sanctions, as sanctions are wont to do, were hurting the people of Niger more than their targeted leaders. Food security worsened, inflation skyrocketed and border closure with Nigeria, particularly along Maradi and half a dozen states in Northern Nigeria, shut down the roughly $500m annual trade in transport, electricity, tobacco, cement, livestock-derived products, fruits and refined petroleum between both nations.

Crucially, the historical affinity between the people of Northern Nigeria and Niger Republic also dampened any thought of killing “our brothers across the border.” In the end, the plan was shelved and in February, 2024, the sanctions were lifted “with immediate effect”, said the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, who disclosed that the decision was based “on purely humanitarian grounds” to ease the suffering of Nigeriens.

At the summit, President Tinubu said ECOWAS “must re-examine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order in four of our member states” and urged Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to “reconsider their decision” to withdraw from the body and “not perceive our organisation as the enemy.”

The decision all but saved ECOWAS from further fragmentation. By dialing back, Tinubu proved to be sensitive to the mood of the region. Still, critics worried that the decision to halt military intervention made ECOWAS look weak. Yet, whenever it becomes necessary to kill people in order to prove your power over them, you have already failed.

On the sidelines of the elections in Senegal, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, told this reporter that ECOWAS never planned to actually invade Niger anyway. “We haven’t really done that in a long while,” he said, and added, “It was always going to be a last resort.”

In many ways, the political option has been given teeth since Tinubu came to office. A number of crises, and even potential disasters, have been averted with his deft interventions.

It is interesting that Tinubu, who in his inaugural speech as Nigeria’s president, promised to retool Nigeria’s foreign policy to more actively lead the regional and continental quest for collective prosperity, has managed to use his chairmanship of the regional body to achieve his foreign policy mandate. His famous 4D doctrine “anchored on Democracy, Development, Demography and Diaspora” seems to have aligned with his core mandate at ECOWAS.

As ECOWAS continues to engage with the juntas in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and  Guinea, it must also look at the way some democracies in the region tinker with their nations’ constitution to give themselves a third term or confer undue advantages on the ruling party. By employing its peer review mechanism to sanction the excesses of their colleagues, the authority of heads of state will further demonstrate the impact of ECOWAS and bring the community closer to the grassroots, assuring the citizens that the body cares for their wellbeing.

Jacobs, a former newspaper editor, Abuja: [email protected]