Muhammadu Buhari.
WEST African griots are fabled storytellers who preserve the history of their people for successive generations. The tale we recount here is of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which turned 40 last Thursday, though it is still struggling to increase trade among its 15 members.
Nigerian scholar and technocrat Adebayo Adedeji is widely regarded as the "father of Ecowas". He had outlined a vision for regional integration in West Africa in a journal article in 1970, before turning theory into practice. As Nigeria’s economic development minister, he convinced 15 West African leaders to establish Ecowas by 1975, after three years of tireless "shuttle diplomacy" across the subregion.
Ecowas has recorded four key achievements. First, it established a protocol that allows the free movement of its 340-million citizens across the subregion. The legendary female traders of West Africa have taken advantage of one of the world’s most impressive mobility zones.
Second, it established Africa’s first subregional security mechanism in 1999, building on the lessons of the Nigerian-led Ecowas peacekeeping interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, in which more than 2,500 peacekeepers died.
The third main achievement was to create a governance protocol — under the leadership of Ghana’s Mohammed Ibn Chambas — in 2001, that helped with some of the difficult democratisation challenges in Guinea, Niger and Togo.
Ecowas has also played a key role in Burkina Faso’s democratic transition following the toppling of the 27-year old autocracy of Blaise Compaoré last October.
The fourth important achievement was the creation of an innovative community levy in 2000 to help fund the organisation. Though the levy has been irregularly paid, other African regional bodies could learn lessons from this scheme to reduce their dependence on external funding.
Despite this progress, Ecowas has also suffered four key failures. Between 1960 and 1990, West Africa was Africa’s most coup-prone subregion, accounting for 37 of the 72 successful putsches.
This culture of militarism remains rife in Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Gambia and Togo. Even in Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military autocrat, has just assumed office.
Ecowas’s second failure involves the penchant of its leaders for engaging in bouts of political alchemy. West African leaders have dreamt up schemes such as transregional highways, railways, gas pipelines and a monetary union, most of which have failed to materialise. Intraregional trade remains an anaemic 9% of the total after 40 years, as industrialisation has stalled.
The third failure is the continuing ubiquitous and negative presence of French neo-colonialism in West Africa. Paris sought to break up Nigeria during its civil war in 1967-70 in order to reduce the country’s potential influence on the subregion’s eight Francophone countries.
It also encouraged Francophone countries to form rival trade blocs that contradicted Ecowas’s integration goals. Today, the currency of these countries is still tied to a French-backed euro, while Paris maintains a 3,000-strong military presence in Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Niger.
French companies also continue to dominate many of the strategic sectors in these countries, though there is a growing Chinese presence.
The final failure of Ecowas has been the lack of vision and leadership by the subregion’s potential hegemon, Nigeria. The country, which hosts the Ecowas secretariat, accounts for about 80% of West Africa’s economy, half of its population and 16 of its 20 largest banks. Any successful regional integration in the subregion must thus be built on a Nigerian foundation.
West Africa’s Gulliver has, however, suffered from political instability, widespread corruption, infrastructural decay and a failure to achieve an industrial takeoff.
Looking ahead, Nigeria is clearly a more natural hegemon in West Africa than France. Paris’s delusions of grandeur are being embarrassingly exposed. The Gallic power continues to suffer a serious financial crisis that has damaged its leadership credibility in Europe, and will eventually force it to reduce its presence in West Africa.
For Ecowas to achieve its integration goals in the next 40 years, it will be important that Nigeria provides the visionary leadership that can fulfil Ecowas’s region-building aspirations. This griot’s tale can still have a happy ending.
Adebajo is executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution.
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