By Paul Ejime
ECOWAS is struggling to whip its wayward member States into line, but the list of leaders undermining the principles and objectives of the 15-nation West African regional economic bloc is growing.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which proclaimed themselves the Alliance of Sahel States, AES, are making every effort to quit, while Guinea, a fourth military-ruled Member State, is enduring a tardy transition programme.
While much attention is focused on these four countries, political tension is building up in at least four other ECOWAS Member States.
In Cote d’Ivoire, the next presidential election is scheduled for October this year but as happened in the run-up to the last election in 2020, there is so much uncertainty in the air. Sitting President Alassane Ouattara, 83, says he would like to continue serving his country as president, although his party has not yet decided its candidate.
With tenure elongation as a political tinderbox, Ouattara had previously said he would like to step down to give the young ones a chance but only if his old rivals would quit politics too.
If he runs in October, opponents and critics would consider it Ouattara’s fourth term bid in the ECOWAS region where third-term syndrome is a major source of political instability.
The Gambia is another ticking bomb, linked with the political ambition of President Adama Borrow, who appears laser-focused on the 2026 presidential election.
ECOWAS had to mobilise human and material resources including military assets to end the 22-year brutal dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh in January 2017 in the Gambia.
But instead of concentrating on governance or real change, President Barrow, who was inaugurated as Jammeh’s successor in Senegal because of instability in the Gambia, is still operating the same 1997 Jammeh era Constitution and pressuring ECOWAS to endorse his establishment of a Special Tribunal to try crimes committed under the Jammeh dictatorship after co-opting some of the old regime prominent figures to win re-election.
Barrow set up a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in 2017, which submitted a draft Constitution to him in September 2020. His government, however, jettisoned that draft document produced at great financial cost, to concentrate on his re-election in 2021.
A 2024 draft Constitution, which his opponents call the “Barrow Draft Constitution” was only presented to the Gambian Parliament in December 2024. It is expected to pass through a national referendum before another presidential election in 2026, and Barrow has already declared he would run.
This month (February 2025) is critical in the political history of two other ECOWAS member States – Guinea Bissau and Togo. While the world’s attention is focused elsewhere, Togo will hold a dubious Senatorial election on 15 February 2025.
The President of the Independent National Electoral Commission, CENI, had extended the date for the submission of candidates to 7 January 2025, in line with a government decree dated 26 December 2024, which set the senatorial elections for February 15, 2025.
Analysts have dubbed the vote Perpetuating Gnassingbé Dynasty 2025 Elections a reference to President Faure Gnassingbé’s succession of his father Gnassingbé Eyadema in 2005.
In March 2024, Togo’s parliament dominated by Faure’s ruling UNIR party, voted 87-0 to adopt a constitutional change decreed by the President that eliminates citizens’ right to vote directly for the country’s leader.
That change to a parliamentary system of government, in violation of ECOWAS protocols, also established a new powerful executive President of the Council of Ministers (PCM), to be elected by members of Parliament, and will function as a prime minister with sweeping powers.
Since the political party or coalition with the most seats in Parliament will produce the PCM, Faure is guaranteed that role going by the results of the sham legislative elections hurriedly held in April 2024 after the controversial constitutional review that gave the UNIR 108 of the 113 Parliamentary seats.
The February 15 Senatorial elections will create a new upper chamber of Togo’s legislature, with 75% of the seats elected by local authority representatives and the remainder appointed directly by the PCM.
In addition, the PCM will serve a six-year term, against the five years of the current presidency, and is renewable indefinitely.
These changes are against the spirit and letters of the ECOWAS protocols and instruments, but the Faure regime has gone unchallenged.
Little wonder Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey recently declared that his country could join the AES countries, even though President Gnassingbé, is one of the leaders mandated by ECOWAS to negotiate rapprochement with the alliance States. The suggestion could be a ploy to pre-empt any move by ECOWAS to chastise the Lome government.
As if these were not enough troubles, the President of Guinea Bissau Umaro Embalo has complicated matters for the regional organisation.
Embalo’s presidential mandate expires on 27 February 2025, but only a miracle can stop him from continuing in office beyond that date, since he has dissolved the country’s parliament for more than a year now, with the electoral commission and the Supreme Court also in comatose.
Like Faure, Embalo’s moves have also gone unchallenged by other ECOWAS leaders.
ECOWAS leaders, who undermine the organisation’s objectives and regional integration agenda without consequence are emboldened by their colleagues who fail to call them out.
This has been on for over a decade in the organisation which marks its 50th anniversary in May this year.
Given its achievements as a foremost Regional Economic Community in Africa, the authoritarian tendencies and disregard for rules by the ECOWAS black sheep, have caused more than enough damage to demand introspection and reflection on the consequences/implications of a West Africa without ECOWAS as a stabilising force.
How can the “ECOWAS of States” be transformed into an “ECOWAS of People”?
Ghana’s new President John Mahama has started well by naming a Special Envoy to the AES countries. His initiative should fit into an integrated ECOWAS effort to arrest the drift.
The Faure Gnassingbe-Senegalese President Diomaye Faye pair as ECOWAS mediators with the AES countries is not working and should be reviewed for effective results.
Before convening another emergency summit, the ongoing African Union Summit in Addis Ababa presents a cost-effective opportunity for ECOWAS leaders to put heads together on the sidelines of the continental gathering to discuss the region’s myriad security, economic and governance challenges.
The re-election of Nigeria’s Ambassador Bankole Adeoye as the AU Commissioner of Political Affairs, Peace and Security and the election of Ghana’s Ambassador Amma Twum-Amoah as Commissioner of Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development, (both from West Africa), is another good development that ECOWAS can leverage on.
Also, citizens and civil society organisations in the ECOWAS region should live up to their fundamental civic responsibilities by holding rulers/leaders to account.
The axiom that power belongs to the people is not an alien concept.
For instance, without the use of kinetics or military incursion, the people of Burkina Faso ousted President Blaise Compaoré and forced him into exile in 2014.
Recently the electorates in Liberia, Senegal and Ghana also changed the governments of their countries through the ballot box and by protecting their votes.
Voters who sell their votes, or vote along primordial ethnic, tribal or religious lines, and citizens who fail to participate in politics, expecting others to pick their chestnuts from the fire only have themselves to blame.
Every country deserves the type of government it deserves.
Citizens are indispensable repositories of power in political governance. If ECOWAS leaders want ECOWAS and their countries to work, they can do so. Every country gets the type of government or leaders it deserves.
Lastly, while ECOWAS must intentionally tackle its existential challenges, the AES junta leaders should not create the impression that ECOWAS is responsible for the leadership, security and colonial problems in their countries.
Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and Consultant on Peace & Security, and Governance Communications
