On Sunday, January 28, 2024, three founding members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their decision to withdraw from the regional bloc.
Their reasons could be summarized as follows: (1) due to foreign interference, ECOWAS has abandoned its founding principles of Pan Africanism, (2) ECOWAS has failed to support the fight against terrorism and insecurity in their countries and (3) ECOWAS has imposed unjust sanctions on them.
First, it is important to note that these three countries and Nigeria are the most affected states in the region in terms of terrorism related insecurity. The Global Terrorism Index which measures the overall impact of terrorism in a country using the indicators of incidents, fatalities, injuries and hostages, places Burkina Faso at number two globally, just after Afghanistan. Mali places fourth and Niger is at number ten. In other words, these three countries are in the top ten of global terrorism incidents.
Secondly, ECOWAS has several protocols which operationalize various principles in its Treaty. One of them is the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. This Protocol, signed by all these three countries during its adoption in 2001, demands of all member states that “every accession to power must be made through free, fair and transparent elections” and has “zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.”
Military juntas are examples of these illegal means. Article 45 of the Protocol emphasizes that any state that abruptly ends its democracy would be subject to sanctions including suspension from the Community. Accordingly, ECOWAS did sanction and suspend Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger following the coups in their countries. They remained suspended until their withdrawal announcement.
The first reason given by the three countries is that ECOWAS has abandoned its original principles. ECOWAS was founded in 1975 as an economic community and was expected to progress to a deeper economically integrated community. The failure of this vision is somehow epitomized by the struggle to adopt a common currency for the bloc. While these challenges may be due to purely economic factors, the role of external interference and the readiness of some member states and their leaders to betray the community interest cannot be overlooked.
The second reason given by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from the ECOWAS was the failure of the bloc to support their fight against insecurity. In response to the apparent terrorist insurgency in Mali in 2012, ECOWAS adopted its novel Counterterrorism Strategy and Action Plan in 2013.
The relative speed with which the strategy was formulated gave hope that ECOWAS meant business. However, the strategy appeared to have died on arrival. Ten years on, the terrorism situation in the region is worse. Perhaps the main weakness of the strategy was that it threw back responsibility to fight terrorism to the individual states. In effect, ECOWAS as an institution appeared to have washed its hands of counterterrorism matters in member states.
ECOWAS neither supported these states with troops nor substantial financial and technical/equipment assistance. Meanwhile, these states have extremely large territories disproportionate to their economic strength to effectively police these lands.
To fill the void created by lackadaisical ECOWAS, the G5 Sahel Group was formed in 2014, comprising Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.
Initial enthusiasm over this initiative quenched earlier than expected; lack of financial and technical support rendered this group almost useless in the face of the sophisticated weapons available to the insurgents in their countries.
In 2022 alone, 8,564 people were victims of terrorism in Burkina Faso with 1,135 deaths. While Mali and Niger had lesser figures, the situation is not too different. Security forces in these countries are simply overwhelmed.
Sanctioning such countries economically and politically by their neighbors was largely motivated by the need to ensure deterrence. To an extent, the ECOWAS leaders who saw themselves as potential victims of more coups decided to go hard on the coup plotters in these countries.
The unusually belligerent attitude of ECOWAS toward Niger appeared to show a lack of solidarity and reasonableness. Persistent attempt by struggling Mali and Burkina Faso to get ECOWAS to lift the biting economic sanctions yielded no results.
For these states, things cannot get worse than they are presently. They are suffering anyway with ECOWAS. There could be opportunities outside ECOWAS, why not explore them? For instance, there could be the opportunity to strike new partnerships in or out of Africa. There could also be the opportunity to disentangle themselves from the rules imposed by ECOWAS membership – such as restrictions on procurement of certain types of weapons.
While the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger may have very plausible reasons for their actions, they seem to be engaging in very risky gambling. How will other ECOWAS members react? For instance, all these three countries are land-locked and, therefore, depend on coastal states like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo for their shipping needs.
Leaving the ECOWAS economic community and all the benefits that come with membership may mean an increased cost of transporting goods to and from these countries. Of course, what these juntas would not like is economic-induced public agitations. Leaving ECOWAS may eventually lead these countries there if the gambling fails.
In conclusion, it is amazing that the leaders of the three countries appear to suggest that they could get something for free from their West African counterparts. The same attitude may have led to the expulsion of French troops from their countries. Yet, they should surely know that in the conduct of foreign policy, and in international relations in general, there is nothing like free lunch.
In the case of the other ECOWAS members, it is not even sure if the lunch even exists to talk of it being free. The de facto leader of the ECOWAS bloc, Nigeria, has had its own share of terrorism scourge and has been sapped of energy.
The other thee major powers, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal either have their own domestic problems to deal with or have a ‘Dzi wo fi asem’ (mind your own business) attitude to foreign policy. Whatever the case, the African politician or military leader must learn to take responsibility for the development of their county rather than deflecting the problems on external parties.
Because there is no charity in global affairs and anyone who comes around comes to see what is in it for them.
Dr. Francis Kwabena Atta is a Lecturer and International Security researcher.