Almost a yr in the past, West Africa appeared alarmingly on the verge of struggle. The Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) was threatening “army intervention” in Niger if the leaders of the nation’s July 26 coup didn’t instantly relinquish energy and free President Mohammed Bazoum.
After the army authorities in Niamey failed to reply, ECOWAS activated a standby pressure, elevating alarm bells throughout the area as residents started to protest the transfer.
Burkina Faso and Mali – Niger’s fellow military-led neighbours who have been already suspended from the bloc – joined with Niamey to kind the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and pledged to defend towards any assaults, threatening to widen the battle.
Tempers then calmed, however solely barely. ECOWAS backtracked, as a substitute slapping crippling sanctions on Niger, blocking its land and air borders, slicing off electrical energy provide from neighbouring Nigeria, and freezing business transactions. On January 29, the AES states collectively declared their exit from the ECOWAS, sending shockwaves by means of the regional bloc that was already seen as weak.
Since, ECOWAS leaders have been scrambling to get the AES again into the bloc by lifting sanctions on Niger; however that has, to date, didn’t appease the alliance earlier than a January 2025 deadline, when the divorce might be official. The bloc’s fracturing, specialists have stated, may roll again greater than 5 many years of regional diplomacy, disband army cooperation amid rising insecurity within the area, and cripple financial ties.
As each side standoff, Senegal’s lately elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has tried to play a “smooth” peacemaker, urging ECOWAS to respect states’ sovereignty, and prompting army authorities leaders to simply accept dialogue.
“I’m no person’s mediator,” Faye, who doesn’t have an official ECOWAS mandate to resolve the disaster, clarified throughout a tour of the AES international locations in Could. However the area’s a number of crises, he identified, require collective effort. “We should be a part of forces to deal with frequent challenges reminiscent of terrorism, local weather change, and poverty,” he stated.
Faye is especially properly positioned to reconcile the bloc as a result of he was not but in workplace final yr when ECOWAS threatened to invade Niger and enjoys goodwill from the army trio, Olakounle Yabi Gilles, head of the West Africa Citizen assume tank (WATHI), instructed Al Jazeera.
“He enjoys credibility already given the particular circumstances round his election.”
Faye’s peace mission
Faye, 44, was sworn in on April 2, following one among Senegal’s most tumultuous elections. Outgoing President Macky Sall had delayed common elections in a transfer broadly seen as an try to cling to energy, forcing ECOWAS to carry emergency conferences throughout which leaders pressured Sall to stay to a set election timetable. Faye and his ally Ousmane Sonko, who’s now prime minister, gained a landslide within the March elections.
In Could, Faye paid respects to his a lot older counterparts in Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast, and touched on the sore subject of ECOWAS’s impending breakup, mentioning the necessity for unity to deal with mass immigration, insecurity and democratic rollbacks within the area as AES members have pushed again election dates.
“Your knowledge and your democratic values ought to be an asset … and my youth and dedication will also be an asset,” Faye instructed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria, the present ECOWAS chair, in Abuja. “I’m satisfied we will open a window of alternative to debate.”
Tinubu, who led the preliminary cost to invade Niger however met unexpectedly robust resistance domestically, urged Faye to “meet these different brothers to influence them to return again to the fold”.
Nevertheless, specialists have stated there are vital challenges for Senegal’s president, a brand new face in regional diplomacy. AES leaders have pledged to push forward with their plans. In March, the international locations’ army chiefs stated a joint pressure was within the works to fight armed teams within the tri-border area of Liptako-Gourma.
In April, after Faye touched down in Mali and held talks with the interim president, Colonel Assimi Goita, he instructed reporters that Goita was inflexible, however “not completely rigid” on ECOWAS. He reported an analogous ambiance after chatting with Burkina Faso’s army chief Captain Ibrahim Traore in Ouagadougou. “We should not be discouraged,” Faye instructed reporters in Bamako.
Analysts have stated the peace mission is vital to Faye and his fiery Prime Minister Sonko as a result of they share the identical views on former colonial energy, France.
“Sonko has private relations with some AES leaders,” stated Alioune Tine, founding father of Dakar-based assume tank Afrikajom Middle. “They’re the entire similar technology and in addition share sovereignist concepts.”
Bamako, Niamey and Ouagadougou have already lower or downgraded ties with France since 2022, sending again greater than 4,000 troops and recruiting Russian mercenaries amid a surge in violence by ISIL (ISIS) and Al Qaeda-linked teams that management swaths of territory. In Could, Sonko additionally raised the potential of shutting French military bases in Senegal which housed about 350 troops.
Senegal’s historic peacemaker function can be an element influencing Faye’s push, Gilles of WATHI added.
“Senegal has at all times loved a job of mediator, particularly in The Gambia,” he stated, referring to when Dakar led the ECOWAS army mission that deposed Yahya Jammeh who refused to step down after his election loss in 2017.
It’s that large brother function that Faye is making an attempt to revive, Gilles stated, as Abuja founders.
ECOWAS decline
When the 16-country ECOWAS was created in 1975, it aimed to spice up financial integration. However because it strengthened, its mandate broadened to incorporate peacekeeping and implementing the rule of legislation. Mauritania’s unexplained exit in 1999 makes present membership 15.
In its heyday, ECOWAS proved a formidable pressure, specialists word. Nigerian-led ECOWAS troops have been pivotal in taking again rebel-held territories and ending the devastating civil wars that racked Sierra Leone and Liberia within the Nineties, representing what’s broadly seen as the primary efficient regional safety initiative on the continent.
However a latest wave of army coups within the area, inner insecurity and politico-economic instabilities in dominant member states like Nigeria have decimated ECOWAS’s energy and shrunk its affect, specialists have stated.
It was that age-old glory, some speculate, {that a} then-newly elected President Tinubu of Nigeria appeared to wish to revive final yr when he led the cost to invade Niger.
Tinubu himself was a freedom fighter throughout Nigeria’s coup period. When he accepted to chair ECOWAS on July 9, 2023 – days earlier than the Niger coup – there had been 5 coups within the area since 2020. He promised to shed the bloc’s “toothless bulldog” picture, however his actions backfired.
Not solely did Tinubu meet uproar on the homefront as Nigerians baulked on the considered struggle amid a biting financial downturn, however the truth that ECOWAS ultimately backtracked additional made it appear to be a canine with out chew, wrote Nnamdi Obasi of the Worldwide Disaster Group.
Analysts have stated ECOWAS appears to be like set to be on the again foot within the looming cut up. The AES international locations mixed contribute a small 8 % of ECOWAS’s $761bn gross home product, however they’ve a inhabitants of greater than 80 million – a few quarter of the bloc’s complete. Persevering with transnational safety pacts are additionally in danger, together with the Multinational Joint Job Drive of Nigeria and Niger, which is preventing the armed group Boko Haram.
Nigeria, particularly, could be hit arduous. Abuja is a lead contributor to ECOWAS’s peacekeeping missions and hosts the ECOWAS Administrative headquarters, Parliament, and Courtroom of Justice. For many years, Nigeria’s energy in ECOWAS has helped cement its affect not simply within the area, however on the continent as an entire.
Financial and familial ties with AES member Niger means Nigerian border communities have been among the worst affected throughout final yr’s disaster and could be once more if the cut up turns into everlasting.
The AES, in the meantime, might endure fewer financial penalties, analysts stated. All three are a part of the West Africa Financial and Financial Union (UEMOA), a francophone group for international locations that share the frequent CFA foreign money. Like ECOWAS, the international locations – Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – additionally take pleasure in low commerce tariffs and free motion, which means any visa or commerce restrictions from ECOWAS might be bypassed pretty simply. Landlocked Niger, which relies on Nigeria for electrical energy and agriculture exports, might be the one exception.
Regardless of Faye’s greatest intentions, the AES states have few incentives to rejoin ECOWAS, and thus, their bullish stance. In Could, Mali and Burkina Faso prolonged their transitional governments by three and 5 years respectively. Already, the alliance has stated it doesn’t recognise ECOWAS’s one-year coverage for exits and claims its January withdrawal was speedy.
“However that shouldn’t be seen as a failure of Faye’s mediation expertise or as a scarcity in his management qualities,” Gilles of WATHI identified, noting that the percentages weren’t in Faye’s favour.
The way in which ahead could be for ECOWAS to maintain the door open to the AES international locations, particularly in the long run, and anticipate when democratic transitions might occur, analysts stated.
To take action, some have instructed ECOWAS maintain workers who’re AES nationals, and invite the alliance to vital conferences. ECOWAS defence chiefs met in Abuja on June 27 to mull over plans for a region-wide “counterinsurgency” pressure however AES international locations shunned invites to the assembly.
“The place of ECOWAS now ought to be: Let’s settle for, let’s maintain the door open, and let’s not confuse the politics of 1 non permanent authorities with the bigger pursuits of the residents of these nations,” Gilles stated.
