Africa (Commonwealth) _ The juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, three West African countries, said on Sunday that they had left the ECOWAS regional economic group. They said the union was imposing “inhumane” penalties in an attempt to undo the coups in their countries.
In a statement, ECOWAS claimed that it was unaware of the nations’ withdrawal decision. In a joint statement broadcast on state television in each of the three nations, the juntas claimed that after almost 50 years, the organization had “moved away from the ideals of its founding fathers and pan-Africanism” and that they had “decided in complete sovereignty on the immediate withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).”
Furthermore, their views stated that ECOWAS has become a menace to its member nations and the inhabitants whose pleasure it is intended to safeguard due to the influence of foreign forces betraying its fundamental values.
In a statement, ECOWAS stated that it was unaware of the nations’ plan to leave the bloc. According to its guidelines, the process of withdrawing might take up to a year. It stated that Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali continue to be significant Community members and that the Authority is still dedicated to resolving the political deadlock via negotiation.
The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc, which was established in 1975 to “promote economic integration” in its member states, is widely regarded as the leading political and regional authority in West Africa. However, in recent years, it has struggled to put an end to numerous coups in the region, where residents have complained that they do not benefit from the region’s abundant natural resources.
Oge Onubogu, head of the Africa Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank, stated that ECOWAS is rapidly losing its efficacy and popularity among residents in some regions of West Africa because they perceive it as just defending the interests of the leaders and not the interests of the people.
The declaration made on Sunday is the most recent development in a sequence of incidents that have increased political unrest in West Africa since the region’s most recent coup—in The juntas claimed that the ECOWAS sanctions had “further crippled populations already battered by years of violence” rather than improving their circumstances.
The ECOWAS delegation claimed that a flight issue prevented its delegates from visiting Niger last week, which Niger’s junta saw as an opportunity to hold the bloc accountable for how it handled the country’s coup. Nwanze is an analyst at the geopolitical research firm SBM Intelligence, which is based in Lagos.
According to Nwanze, this move appears to be an even greater decline in the dominance of France and Nigeria, the two historical superpowers in West Africa. The fifteen member nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), often referred to as CEDEAO in French and Portuguese, are part of a regional political and economic union.
The declared objective of ECOWAS, which is regarded as one of the cornerstone regional blocs of the continent-wide African Economic Community (AEC), is to enable its member nations to attain “collective self-sufficiency” by forming a single, sizable trade bloc through the establishment of a comprehensive economic and commercial union.
Furthermore, ECOWAS seeks to advance economic growth and improve living conditions. The union’s declared goal is to advance regional economic integration. It was founded on May 28, 1975, when the Lagos Treaty was signed. In the Beninian metropolis of Cotonou, a new version of the treaty was agreed upon and signed on July 24, 1993.
The promotion of human rights, economic and social justice, equality, interdependence, solidarity, cooperation, nonaggression, and regional peace are all essential to ECOWAS’s core values.
The ECOWAS Free Movement of Persons, Residences and Establishment Protocol and the Ecotour Action Plan 2019–2029 are two of the organization’s most notable policies and programs. The Ecotour Action Plan seeks to grow and integrate each member state’s tourism economy, while the Free Movement of Persons Protocol grants citizens the freedom to visit and dwell on the territory of any member state.
In times of political turmoil and instability, ECOWAS member nations periodically dispatch their combined armed forces to intervene in each other’s countries, acting as a peacekeeping force in the region.
When ECOWAS was founded, there were fifteen member states: eight of them spoke French, five of them English, and two of them Portuguese. In May 1975, all of the present members became founder members of the community.
