Almost a year ago, West Africa seemed alarmingly on the brink of war. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened “military intervention” in Niger if the leaders of the country’s July 26 coup do not immediately step down and free President Mohamed Bazoum.
After the military government in Niamey failed to respond, ECOWAS activated a standby force, sounding alarm bells across the region as citizens began protesting the move.
Burkina Faso and Mali – Niger’s military-led neighbors already excluded from the bloc – joined Niamey to form the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) and pledged to defend themselves against any attacks, threatening to widen the conflict.
The temper then calmed, but only slightly. ECOWAS pushed back, instead imposing devastating sanctions on Niger, blocking its land and air borders, cutting off electricity from neighboring Nigeria and freezing trade. On January 29, the AES states jointly announced their withdrawal from ECOWAS, sending shockwaves through the already weak regional bloc.
Since then, ECOWAS leaders have been trying to bring AES back into the bloc by lifting sanctions on Niger. but that, so far, has failed to appease the alliance ahead of the January 2025 deadline, when the divorce will be official. A breakup of the bloc, experts said, could upend more than five decades of regional diplomacy, dissolve military cooperation amid growing insecurity in the region and cripple economic ties.
As the two sides clash, newly elected Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has tried to play a “soft” peacemaker, urging ECOWAS to respect states’ sovereignty and pushing the leaders of the military governments to accept dialogue.
“I am not anybody’s mediator,” Faye, who has no formal ECOWAS mandate to resolve the crisis, clarified during a tour of AES countries in May. But the multiple crises in the region, he pointed out, require a collective effort. “We must join forces to tackle common challenges such as terrorism, climate change and poverty,” he said.
Fay is particularly well placed to reconcile the bloc because he was not yet in power last year when ECOWAS threatened to invade Niger and enjoys goodwill from the military troika, Yabi Gilles, head of the Western Citizens think tank, told Al Olakounle of Africa (WATHI). Jazira.
“He already enjoys credibility given the special circumstances surrounding his election.”
Faye’s peacekeeping mission
Faye, 44, was sworn in on April 2, following one of Senegal’s most tumultuous elections. Outgoing President Macky Sall had delayed general elections in a move widely seen as an attempt to cling to power, forcing ECOWAS to hold emergency meetings in which leaders pressed Sall to stick to a set election timetable. Faye and her ally Ousmane Sonko, who is now prime minister, won the March election by a landslide.
In May, Faye paid tribute to his much larger counterparts in Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire and touched on the vexed issue of the imminent dissolution of ECOWAS, highlighting the need for unity to tackle mass migration, insecurity and democratic retreat in the region as AES members have delayed election dates.
“Your wisdom and your democratic values should be an asset … and my youth and determination can also be an asset,” Fay told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria, the current ECOWAS chairman, in Abuja. “I am convinced that we can open a window of opportunity for discussion.”
Tinubu, who led the initial charge to invade Niger but met unexpectedly strong resistance at home, urged Faye to “meet those other brothers to convince them to come back into the fold”.
But experts said there were significant challenges ahead for the Senegalese president, a new face in regional diplomacy. AES leaders are committed to moving forward with their plans. In March, the countries’ military leaders said a joint force was in the works to fight armed groups in the Liptako-Gourma tri-border region.
In April, after Faye arrived in Mali and held talks with interim president Col. Asimi Goita, she told reporters that Goita was rigid, but “not totally rigid” in ECOWAS. He reported a similar atmosphere after speaking to Burkina Faso’s military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, in Ouagadougou. “We must not be discouraged,” Faye told reporters in Bamako.
Analysts said the peacekeeping mission is important to Faye and his fiery prime minister Sonko because they share the same views on former colonial power France.
“Sonko has personal relationships with some AES leaders,” said Alioune Tine, founder of the Dakar-based Afrikajom Center think tank. “They are all of the same generation and also share dominant ideas.”
Bamako, Niamey and Ouagadougou have already severed or downgraded relations with France from 2022, sending back more than 4,000 troops and recruiting Russian mercenaries amid a surge in violence by ISIL (ISIS) and groups linked to Al Kaeda that control tracts of land. In May, Sonko also raised the possibility that French army bases in Senegal, which housed about 350 troops, could be closed.
Senegal’s historic peacemaking role is also a factor influencing Faye’s push, WATHI’s Gilles added.
“Senegal has always enjoyed a mediating role, especially in The Gambia,” he said, referring to when Dakar led the ECOWAS military mission that ousted Yahya Jammeh who refused to step down after his 2017 election defeat.
It is this big brother role that Faye is trying to revive, Gilles said, as the founders of Abuja.
fall of ECOWAS
When the 16-nation ECOWAS was created in 1975, it aimed to stimulate economic integration. But as it strengthened, its mandate expanded to include peacekeeping and the enforcement of the rule of law. Mauritania’s unexplained exit in 1999 brings the current membership to 15.
In its heyday, ECOWAS proved to be a formidable force, experts note. ECOWAS troops led by Nigeria were instrumental in reclaiming rebel-held territory and ending the devastating civil wars that hit Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s, representing what is widely seen as the first effective initiative regional security on the continent.
But a recent spate of military coups in the region, internal insecurity and political-economic instability in dominant member states such as Nigeria have decimated ECOWAS’ strength and shrunk its influence, experts say.
It was this age-old glory, some speculate, that a then-President-elect Tinubu of Nigeria appeared to want to revive last year when he led the charge to invade Niger.
Tinubu himself was a freedom fighter during the Nigerian coup era. When he accepted the presidency of ECOWAS on July 9, 2023 – days before Niger’s coup – there had been five coups in the region since 2020. He promised to shed the bloc’s “toothless bulldog” image, but his actions have failed.
Not only did Tinubu face uproar at home, as Nigerians groaned at the thought of war amid a severe economic recession, but the fact that ECOWAS eventually retreated further made him look like a dog without a bite, wrote International Crisis Group’s Nnamdi Obasi .
Analysts said ECOWAS looks set to be at the back of the impending split. AES countries together contribute a paltry 8 percent of ECOWAS’ gross domestic product of $761 billion, but have a population of more than 80 million – about a quarter of the bloc’s total. Ongoing interstate security pacts are also at risk, including the multinational Nigerian-Nigerian joint task force fighting the Boko Haram militant group.
Nigeria, in particular, will be hit hard. Abuja is a major contributor to ECOWAS peacekeeping missions and hosts the ECOWAS administrative offices, the Parliament and the Court of Justice of the European Communities. For decades, Nigeria’s strength in ECOWAS has helped strengthen its influence not only in the region, but the continent as a whole.
Economic and family ties to AES member Niger mean Nigerian border communities were hardest hit during last year’s crisis and would be again if the split becomes permanent.
AES, meanwhile, may suffer fewer financial consequences, analysts said. All three are part of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), a French-speaking community for countries that share the common CFA currency. Like ECOWAS, the countries – Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – also enjoy low trade tariffs and free movement, meaning any visa or trade restrictions from ECOWAS could be circumvented fairly easily . Landlocked Niger, which depends on Nigeria for electricity and agricultural exports, could be the only exception.
Despite Faye’s best intentions, AES states have little incentive to rejoin ECOWAS, and hence their bullish stance. In May, Mali and Burkina Faso extended their transitional governments by three and five years respectively. Already, the alliance has said it does not recognize ECOWAS’ one-year exit policy and claims its withdrawal in January was immediate.
“But this should not be seen as a failure of Faye’s mediation skills or a lack of leadership skills,” WATHI’s Gilles pointed out, noting that the odds were not in Faye’s favor.
The way forward would be for ECOWAS to keep the door open to AES countries, especially in the long term, and anticipate when democratic transitions might occur, analysts said.
To do this, some have suggested that ECOWAS retain staff who are AES nationals and invite the alliance to important meetings. ECOWAS defense chiefs met in Abuja on June 27 to discuss plans for a region-wide “counter-insurgency” force, but AES countries avoided invitations to the meeting.
“The position of ECOWAS now should be: Let’s accept, let’s keep the door open and let’s not confuse the politics of an interim government with the larger interests of the citizens of these nations,” Gilles said.