Before we call it ECO-WAS, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Within the aftermath of the announcement on 28 January 2024 by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic denouncing the Revised Treaty of the Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) and leaving the regional bloc “directly”, reactions spanned the spectrum from hubris to hyperbole. From Nigeria, the regional anchor and chair of the Neighborhood, the predominant sentiment was: “the three international locations would have extra to lose.”

Outdoors the continent, some described the state of affairs as “West Africa’s ‘Brexit’ second” or Sahelexit, likening it to Britain’s choice in 2016 to stop the European Union. Reinforcing the comparability, the finalization this previous week of the exit of the three international locations from ECOWAS coincided with the fifth anniversary of the UK’s exit from the EU. The temptation to learn an excessive amount of into this coincidence needs to be resisted.

It’s important that the announcement by the three ECOWAS frontier states in 2024 was made shortly after the arrival in France of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu for what was mentioned to be a “personal go to”. All three international locations have been concerned in a plurinational dispute involving each Nigeria and France and linked with army rule and transitions to elected authorities.

In actuality, nonetheless, the disputes have been extra about historic legacies of French colonial rule, the advanced insecurity within the Sahel, and Nigeria’s regional position. In reference to this, the joint assertion by the three international locations accused ECOWAS of  being “underneath the affect of overseas powers and betraying its founding ideas.”

These weren’t allegations to be handled evenly. There was additionally significance to the truth that the announcement got here on the eve of ECOWAS’ golden jubilee yr and represented the newest escalation in what’s the truth is a debate about how one can calibrate inter-state relations in an more and more advanced regional surroundings.

It didn’t have to finish this fashion. As a matter of regulation and however the peremptory language deployed, the departure declaration by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in 2024 denouncing the ECOWAS Treaty was not fast. Article 91(1) of the Revised ECOWAS Treaty requires departing international locations to “give to the Govt Secretary one yr’s discover in writing” and their departure can solely take impact on the finish of the interval.

ECOWAS had each alternative throughout this era to exert itself to indicate it desired a unique consequence. In the long run, the Neighborhood appeared manifestly incapable of sustaining two contradictory concepts. One is the strategic significance of excellent neighbourliness inside ECOWAS as a regional group of sovereign friends; the opposite is the dedication to authorities based on democratic legitimacy.

The truth that ECOWAS finds itself within the present predicament ostensibly over the destiny elective authorities within the area is considerably perverse acknowledgement of how far it has superior since its origins.

Of the 15 heads of state and authorities current on the adoption of the Treaty of the Financial Neighborhood of West African States in Might 1975, seven had been army rulers and one other six had been succeeded by troopers. Felix Houphöuet-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire was the one president as such among the many unique signatories who was neither a soldier nor instantly succeeded by one however his successor was toppled by the army in December 1999. Abdou Diouf, who represented Senegal on the adoption of the treaty was then Prime Minister to President Leopold Senghor, whom he later succeeded as president on 1 April, 1981.

Cape Verde and Senegal are, due to this fact, the one ECOWAS international locations to have been spared the expertise of army rule. This truth ought to ordinarily have geared up the Neighborhood and its member states with sufficient expertise in reacting to army coups. Nevertheless, it could be a mistake to suppose this denouement is the results of an argument over coups alone or principally.

ECOWAS started life in the midst of the world vitality disaster of the Nineteen Seventies, based by rulers who declared it as their objective to “foster and speed up the financial and social growth of our States in an effort to enhance the residing requirements of our peoples.” A mix of misrule and debt overhang miscarried this goal even earlier than the ink was dry on the parchment on which it was written.

Within the wake of instability that adopted, the group adjusted its mission in 1981 to incorporate mutual defence and safety, importing an implicit obligation of regional solidarity. When the Mano River international locations, first Liberia after which Sierra Leone, descended into warfare from 1989, Nigeria, then led by army ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, launched a regional intervention referred to as ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in 1990.

A assessment of the unique ECOWAS Treaty adopted in 1993, chaired by Nigeria’s former army ruler, Yakubu Gowon, himself the prime mover behind the unique ECOWAS imaginative and prescient. The Revised ECOWAS Treaty once more enhanced the obligations of mutual solidarity among the many international locations of the sub-region.

Because the anchor nation in ECOWAS, Nigeria was naturally anticipated to bear a lot of the burden of financing this obligation. However a straitened economic system on the finish of a long time of misrule have pissed off that functionality on the a part of Nigeria at exactly the time that the international locations of the Sahel wanted its presence probably the most in response to Islamist insurgencies.

The ensuing vacuum has been crammed by exterior actors. The French proved to be their very own worst enemies of their try to fill this vacuum, offering the troopers who’ve seized energy in these international locations with a typical foil. French departure in November 2022 and regional isolation by ECOWAS have proved to be a boon to Russia which has shortly constructed up belongings and relations with the regimes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

Notionally, the departure of those three international locations will value ECOWAS 54.35 per cent of its landmass, 20 per cent of its sovereign membership, 16.5 per cent of its inhabitants and seven per cent of its GDP. The precise prices are incalculable. First, Mali and Niger have been historic buffers between the violence of the Sahel and the Maghreb on the one hand and the coastal states of the Gulf of Guinea on the opposite. Their departure may create new safety exposures.

Second, the casual economies of West Africa rely considerably on these international locations. Commerce, migration and pilgrimage routes traverse via them and the impression on the poor and the excluded who depend on these casual routes may both show to be prohibitive or show that our inter-state borders are hole in legitimacy and that means within the lives of strange individuals.

Third, these international locations are essential for civil aviation in West Africa for overflights. In the event that they had been to disclaim these, ticketing and routing into their southern neighbours may additionally develop into prohibitive.

The upshot is that, in a area outlined by notoriously porous borders and transnational communities, severing ties might be simpler mentioned than executed. Even now, there’s nonetheless purpose not to surrender hope: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger retain their membership of the CFA Franc Zone within the UEMOA, 5 of whose members stay within the ECOWAS.

ECOWAS has put a courageous face on its diminution, claiming that its institutional doorways stay open to those international locations however their Alliance of Sahel States (AES) is up and operating. The sensation stays inescapable that this consequence was not foregone and that it has been enabled by high-level ineptitude among the many management of ECOWAS.

Ghana’s new president, John Mahama, has in a sensible method made it a precedence to advance rapprochement with the AES international locations, appointing a private envoy to steer this course of. The Neighborhood ought to totally assist him.

It’s unimaginable to not ponder what may need been. Over the previous yr whereas the imminence of those losses escalated, Nigeria’s President and Chairperson of ECOWAS, Bola Tinubu, has been to France on quite a few events. Take into account what may need been if he discovered time to interact and personally go to these West African neighbours? Absolutely, that was a mission match for a new presidential jet.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer, teaches on the Fletcher College of Legislation and Diplomacy and may be reached via chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.