Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, three West African countries that are currently being led by military juntas, announced their collective decision to leave the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc on Sunday, 28 January 2024.
The ‘triad’ began their ‘bye-bye ECOWAS’ moves shortly after the bloc’s botched threat to launch a joint military offensive in Niger after the coup in that country last year. ECOWAS wanted to use Niger as an example to stem the coup tide in the region. Eight coups happened on the African continent between 2020 and 2023 – the majority of them being in the sub-region. The eighth one within that period was in Gabon. It was preceded by the Niger putsch on July 26, 2023, when the military announced the overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum. General Abdourahamane Tiani became the new leader of the country. After the Niger coup, ECOWAS threatened on August 10 to deploy a regional force to “restore constitutional order” in the francophone country. Before the overthrow of Bazoum in Niger, there had been two topplings within a space of eight months in Burkina Faso – Ghana’s northernmost neighbour. The first ousting occurred on January 24, 2022, when President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was removed from power by the military and Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was subsequently inaugurated president in February of the same year. On September 30, Lieutenant-Colonel Damiba, too, was at the receiving end of the bitter putsch pill when he was removed by the army and replaced by Captain Ibrahim Traoré as a transitional president until a presidential election scheduled for July 2024. Before Burkina Faso, there was Sudan. On October 25, 2021, soldiers led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane chased out the transitional civilian leaders, who were supposed to lead the country towards democracy after 30 years of dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, himself deposed in 2019. Since April 15, 2023, a power struggle war between General Burhane and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has claimed, at least, 5,000 innocent lives. Ahead of the Sudan coup was that of Guinea. On September 5, 2021, the military overthrew President Alpha Condé and Colonel Mamady Doumbouya became president on October 1, 2021. The military has promised to return the country to civilian rule by the end of 2024. Just as in the case of Burkina Faso, there were two coups in Mali, within nine months before Guinea’s. On August 18, 2020, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was overthrown by the military, and a transitional government was formed in October. However, on May 24, 2021, the military arrested the president and the Prime Minister. Colonel Assimi Goïta was inaugurated in June as transitional president. The junta has committed to returning the country to civilian rule , after the elections scheduled for February 2024. Apart from Sudan, the other coups happened in Francophone West African and Central African (Gabon) countries.
ECOWAS has been urging the ‘Sahel triad’ to return to democratic rule, but the military leaders are intent on their immediate withdrawal from the bloc. Already, they had been suspended by ECOWAS after their respective countries’ coups, so, perhaps, they saw no reason to still stick around when, in their reasoning, they were not wanted anyway.
Although a bit drastic, the announcement of their withdrawal was not entirely unexpected, as the ‘triad’ had earlier hinted at such an eventuality following their overtures to confederate and also ditch the CFA franc for the ‘Sahel’, a visionary common currency for their countries.
Ahead of the common currency announcement, the trio announced their intention to form a confederation with the ultimate aim of morphing into a federation à la Nigeria.
A confederation is a type of government made up of a league of independent nations or states in which each state is independent and has its authority and autonomy, but they come together for some sort of shared government. The foreign ministers of the three francophone neighbours, who are part of the Alliance of Sahel States, made the recommendation on Friday, 1 December 2023. The three ministers met in Bamako for two days where they discussed how to operationalise the alliance with emphasis on the importance of diplomacy, defence and development “to consolidate political and economic integration”.
The Foreign Affairs Minister of Mali, Abdoulaye Diop, indicated at the time that the heads of state of each country would be briefed about the recommendation at a meeting among them at Bamako, where the common currency announcement was subsequently made. In November 2023, the economy and finance ministers of the three countries proposed the creation of a stabilisation fund, an investment bank and a committee that would study an economic and monetary union. Also, their army heads signed a mutual defence pact in mid-September this year. The Liptako-Gourma Charter, named after the eponymous historical region, established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). They appear to be walking in Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah’s footprints – but in their peculiar way. Garvey and Nkrumah had pushed for a United States of Africa, as the surest way to rescue the continent from the traps of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The idea first emanated from Garvey, who fiercely pushed for a Black renaissance of sorts, by advocating a return to the motherland – Africa – by all Black people in the diaspora. He gave meaning to the concept in his 1924 poem, ‘Hail, United States of Africa’. Garvey’s idea of a federal African state influenced African fighters for independence and pan-Africanists such as Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea and Modiba Keita of Mali.
At a meeting in Accra, which took place from April 27 to 29, 1961, Nkrumah, Touré and Keïta signed a charter formally establishing a tripartite Union of African States. The charter came into effect upon its simultaneous publication on July 1 in the capitals of Ghana, Guinea, and Mali after the three heads of state had met at Bamako, Mali, on June 26, to examine the extent to which decisions reached at their April meeting in Accra had been implemented.
The drafting of the charter evolved out of a decision announced by the three government leaders at Conakry, Guinea, on December 24, 1960, envisioning common diplomatic representation and the creation of committees to draw up arrangements for harmonising economic and monetary policies. The Ghana–Guinea–Mali Union was birthed in 1958 with Ghana and Guinea as members of a new Union of Independent African States. Mali joined in 1961. The Union, however, disbanded in 1963. Its legacy was largely limited to longstanding political relationships between Nkrumah (President and Prime Minister of Ghana 1957–1966), Touré (President of Guinea 1958–1984), and Keïta (President of Mali 1960–1968). The union again came into the news when Nkrumah was named as the co-president of Guinea after he was deposed as President of Ghana by a military coup in 1966. Nkrumah, a staunch Pan-Africanist, had intended the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union as the nucleus for his oft-preached United States of Africa.
Decades later, other African icons such as Muammar Gaddafi took up the task of forging the 54-nation continent into a federal nation. “I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa,” Gaddafi told the AU in 2009 after he was elected to chair the regional body. Gaddafi even went ahead to propose the formation of “a single African military force, a single currency and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent”.
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe revived the idea following the killing of Gaddafi in the Battle of Sirte in October 2011. After the death of Mugabe in 2019, following his ouster through a coup d’état in 2017, that led to his resignation as president, the idea of a United States of Africa seemed to have died, until recently when it was resuscitated in the Sahel.
POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS:
ECOWAS has been trying to promote cooperation among West African nations, but the departure of these three countries could weaken its efforts. The military-led governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger do not recognise ECOWAS and accuse it of being influenced by external powers. They have also cut ties with France and sought support from Russia for security.
The military leaders argue that they need to restore security before organising elections due to insurgencies linked to groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State. They claim that ECOWAS has not adequately supported them in their fight against terrorism. They also criticise ECOWAS for deviating from its original goals and the spirit of Pan-Africanism.
“After 49 years, the valiant peoples of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger regretfully and with great disappointment observe that the (ECOWAS) organisation has drifted from the ideals of its founding fathers and the spirit of Pan-Africanism,” Colonel Amadou Abdramane, the Niger junta spokesman, said in the statement. “The organisation notably failed to assist these states in their existential fight against terrorism and insecurity,” Abdramane added.
Their decision could affect the free movement of goods and people within the ECOWAS region, especially since ECOWAS had previously restricted their access to regional financial markets. The three countries may hit back, economically, at ECOWAS member states once they devise strategies to bolster their respective and common economies irrespective of whatever ‘sanctions’ the bloc has imposed on them. The withdrawal, thus, could also deal a big blow to regional economic integration and cooperation. It may occasion a loss of trade and investment opportunities within the ECOWAS framework and disrupt the intertwined economies of member states. It might also adversely affect currency stability, infrastructural development, and joint economic ventures which straddle multiple countries in the sub-region.
The withdrawal of the three countries also risks fracturing relations with ECOWAS member states, since the triad is now more likely to strengthen their alliance with Russia, whose interests in Africa do not align with those of Europe and the United States of America, who still have strong ties with most ECOWAS member states. Such geopolitical shifts could hamper diplomatic interventions in the future and frustrate regional cooperation and collaboration on both regional and international issues. Additionally, as the maxim goes: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’. The bloc needs a united front to resolve this thorny issue in order to have a concerted effort towards the fight against terrorism in the sub-region, particularly within the Sahel. A lack of regional unity could render that fight extremely difficult. Indeed, lack of cooperation may likely lead to thriving terrorism cells as well as increased terrorist activities ; the proliferation of small arms and weapons, and other vices that may pose security threats to innocent citizens, particularly, women and children.
