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The months-long tension between Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, and ECOWAS, have finally come to a head with the three Sahel countries making a big statement that is sure to shake the foundation of the regional bloc on Sunday 28th of January 2024. So, what is this big statement? Well, the military juntas of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso decided that they had enough of ECOWAS and so they decided to withdraw from the bloc.This is huge. Now the announcement was made known through a joint statement made by the three junta’s and broadcasted on state television in all three nations. According to the joint statement the decision to withdraw from the bloc was made in complete sovereignty, and the reason for this decision was because the bloc had “moved away from the ideals of its founding fathers and pan-Africanism” after nearly 50 years in existence. The statement further added that ECOWAS, under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its member states and its populations whose happiness it is supposed to ensure.

The military juntas further accused ECOWAS of failing to assist the three countries in fighting “existential” threats like terrorism. In their own words “Indeed, the organisation has not provided assistance to our states in the context of our existential fight against terrorism and insecurity; worse, when these states decided to take their destiny into their own hands, it adopted an irrational and unacceptable posture by imposing illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible sanctions in violation of its own texts; all things which have further weakened populations already bruised by years of violence imposed by instrumentalized and remote-controlled terrorist hordes,” In simple terms, since these three nations have been battling with insecurity and terrorism, ECOWAS as a regional bloc has never offered to help but the bloc was the first to impose stringent sanctions on these countries following the coup.

Hours after this huge announcement was made, ECOWAS responded by releasing its own statement. The bloc started with saying that it has not yet received a direct formal notification about Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s withdrawal from the West Africa regional bloc and that protocol provides that withdrawal takes up to one year to be completed. It further said that “Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali remain important members of the Community and the Authority remains committed to finding a negotiated solution to the political impasse. Well, regardless of this statement by ECOWAS, it doesn’t seem likely that the military junta’s of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso would go back on their decision.

Now since the establishment of ECOWAS in 1975, this is the first time ever that three member countries are voluntarily leaving the bloc, and it brings to mind a couple of questions such as what has gone wrong? Is Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali justified in leaving ECOWAS? What is the implication for ECOWAS if Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso officially leave the bloc? Let’s attempt to answer these questions.

First, what has gone wrong? The answer to that is a lot. ECOWAS was established in 1975 with one goal which is to promote cooperation and integration and raise the living standards of its peoples, and to maintain and enhance economic stability.” However, due to political instability and civil wars rampant among its members, the goal was revised in 1993 to include a mandate to facilitate peace, security, and stability in West Africa. In 2001, the bloc went on to adopt the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, which states “every accession to power must be made through free, fair and transparent elections” and member states must demonstrate a “zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means”. This means zero tolerance towards coup plotters. Now, based on this protocol, it would look like ECOWAS is justified in its actions towards Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso after all they are currently being ruled by a military government. But, the issue is not as simple as it seems.

Now, ECOWAS says it stands for democracy and good governance right? Yet among its member states, most of the elections conducted since its creation have not been free and fair. The leaders who end up winning the elections were never the people’s choice and under their leadership, the citizens suffer and struggle, the standards of living are low, and the economy is very bad. Meanwhile, the leaders are living affluent lives. Throughout all this, ECOWAS has never attempted to try and fix this issue. When Blaise Compaore unconstitutionally ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years, did ECOWAS do something about it? Of course not. What about in Chad when the late Idriss Deby ruled the country for 30 years by manipulating the constitution, did ECOWAS do something about it? No they did not. In May 2015, ECOWAS abandoned a proposal to restrict West African presidents to two terms after opposition from Togo and The Gambia. This means that any African president can rule as long as they like regardless of whether or not the people are okay with it.

ECOWAS has rightly looked the other way when political violence has occurred in it’s member countries, yet when the coup occurred in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso which were accepted by the people of these nations, they quickly imposed stringent sanctions on them. The current head of the bloc, Nigerian President Tinubu even went further to threaten military intervention against Niger all because the International community ordered them to. As the military juntas of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso rightly said, ECOWAS has become a threat to its members.

In addition, ECOWAS says its mandate is to facilitate peace, security, and stability in Africa yet the bloc never offered to help fight the insecurity and terrorism which Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have been battling with. The only thing each individual member has been concerned with is the spillover effect. But the truth is supposing as a body, each ECOWAS member came together to fight the insurgency when it first started in Mali in 2013, the situation would not be as critical as it is now. It seems the only mandate ECOWAS is capable of fulfilling is to impose sanctions whenever there is a coup. So what has gone wrong with ECOWAS? Everything. It’s no wonder, therefore, that in recent times, ECOWAS has been regarded as a puppet organization that does the bidding of foreign governments even when it goes against the interest of the citizens.

So, is Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso justified in leaving ECOWAS? of course, they are. What is the use of being part of an organization that doesn’t work towards the interests of its members? Truthfully the regional bloc has failed the countries of the Sahel. The original mandate of ECOWAS is to raise the standards of living of its member states and promote economic stability. Yet it was the same ECOWAS that imposed stringent trade and economic sanctions on Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso following the coup and these sanctions have contributed greatly to the hardship of the citizens of these nations. How then is that promoting economic stability? Someone may say that the reason why the bloc imposed these sanctions was because of the coups that occurred in these nations. Well, why didn’t they impose the same sanctions on Chad where a similar coup occurred in 2021? They didn’t because they were following the orders of France who deemed the coup necessary. Isn’t that hypocritical? Besides these, the coup in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso occurred because the people were not happy with the state of things so since the people support these coups doesn’t that count for something? Just like the international community and foreign governments see it, ECOWAS also sees Democracy as only when an election is conducted regardless of how the election is conducted. Whether or not the results are manipulated is not their problem. Truthfully this is a big problem not just in West Africa but Africa as a whole.

Now, what is the implication if Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali leave the bloc? Well, the implication is going to be huge. In our opinion, if Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso eventually end up leaving, ECOWAS may likely fall because these three nations were part of the founding fathers of the bloc. So it would definitely be a huge blow. As for Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, leaving the bloc would mean that they would no longer be bound to the sanctions imposed on them by the bloc. It also means that they can now focus on building the Alliance of the Sahel, a defense pact formed between the three countries last year. An article stated that if Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso leave ECOWAS, it would affect them negatively because they are landlocked nations that depend on ports in their ECOWAS neighbors for imports and exports. Well, they won’t have to because Morocco recently extended a helping hand to them by granting them access to the Atlantic Ocean. So, you see, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faoa have nothing to lose if they do leave. Now the question is would ECOWAS allow them to truly leave?

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