By Desmond Davies, GNA
Abuja, Nov. 5, GNA – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), founded 50 years ago, is no longer fit for purpose in its current form as “an elite club” of political leaders, participants unanimously agreed at a conference in Abuja.
They called for an ECOWAS of the People to help drive regional integration faster,
Meeting at ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja over the weekend, the experts called for “reimagining” West African regional integration because it was no longer an abstract notion.
The participants said that the changes needed to be made to the structure of ECOWAS to ensure that there was better connection with West Africans had stalled.
Dr Kayode Fayemi, Founder of the Abuja-based Amandla Institute for Policy and Leadership Advancement, one of the organisers of the meeting of experts, noted: “Under normal circumstances, even without its current challenges, a strong case could be made for a reinvention of the West African integration project.
“The grounds for such a reinvention are many, and they were already a source of discussions well before the 50th anniversary of ECOWAS.”
He continued: “At one level, there were strong concerns that the promised transition from the ECOWAS of rulers – an elite club of incumbent political leaders – to a community of the people, centred on citizens, was not happening, at least not as quickly and effectively as was wished.
“At another level, concerns were cumulating that the much-promised internal reforms designed to make the community more agile had stalled, with the consequence that the organisation was becoming much more remote from the peoples of West Africa it was meant to serve, and in danger of being reduced to an inchoate bureaucratic juggernaut,” Fayemi added.
Professor ‘Funmi Olonisakin, Vice President, International, Engagement and Services at King’s College London, pointed out that state-led initiatives of integration in Africa were failing.
“The promise of an ECOWAS of the People is under threat,” she said, but noted that young Africans, given the chance, were the ones who could move integration in Africa faster.
Founder of the African Leadership Centre (ALC) at King’s College London 15 years ago, the academic body has trained more than 250 young Africans during this period.
The ALC’s African Public Square featured at the meeting, which Prof Olonisakin said made the “cross-generational presence special”.
With a population of more than 400 million, 65 per cent of whom are under the age of 24 in West Africa, she said that it was obvious that it now had to be ECOWAS of the People for the next generation.
“ECOWAS at 50 gives us the chance to look back in looking forward, she added.
The ECOWAS Commissioner, Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Dr Abdel-Fatau Musah, said ECOWAS had kept “a strategic silence” during the meeting “to give the people of West Africa their say on regional integration”.
He said that by mid-2026, an ECOWAS Social, Economic and Cultural Council would be in place “to give the people of West Africa more say about how ECOWAS functions”.
He added: “We want ECOWAS citizens to take the lead in member states.”
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the West African Think Tank Initiative (WATHI) were the other organisers of the two-day event that reflected on ECOWAS’s journey over the past five decades and looked at its role in shaping the future of regional integration and governance in West Africa.
GNA
Edited by Beatrice Asamani Savage