By Ejiroghene Barrett
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took a bold step recently, choosing to place its regional fraternity above all else, when it announced the end to sanctions imposed on four of its member-states for carrying out military coups against their democratically elected governments.
The regional body’s decision to halt all sanctions on the three Sahel states and Guinea, it says, was in consideration of the heavy economic burden it placed on the populations rather than the intended goal of “persuading” the military authorities of these countries to handover power to democratically elected governments.
Rather than extract assurances of a return to democratic rule, they brought severe repercussions on populations already weakened by poverty and insecurity. The enforcement was obviously a blemish on the organisation’s image among the populations in those countries who saw its actions as inconsiderate of their circumstances.
The decision by the military regimes in three of the four states, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, to pull out of the regional body, they say, was the result of the biting effects of these sanctions.
Calls by several ECOWAS leaders for an end to the sanctions were prompted by these consequences. The most prominent of these voices was Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s former military ruler and the only surviving member of the group of Heads of state who penned the document that established the regional organisation in 1975.
Gowon’s appeal to the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the ECOWAS, a group in which he held a distinguished position in the past, could not have been better articulated, reminding them of the gains of the regional body’s establishment, such as trade liberalisation, right of West Africans to live legitimately in any country within the Community, as well as its successes in peacekeeping operations.
Nigeria’s President, and current Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, echoed Gowon’s call at the recently concluded Extraordinary Summit of the regional body in Abuja, where the decision to end the sanctions was reached.
Tinubu noted that “everything we did was in hopes of persuading our brothers that there existed a better path, a path that would lead to genuine improvement of their people’s welfare through democratic good governance…However, the sanctions that we contemplated might help lead our brothers to the negotiating table have become a harsh stumbling block.”
The Liberian president, Joseph Boakai, also amplified the former Nigerian president’s position, noting that “his doctrine of regional unity” was rooted “in the notions of community solidarity encompassing the social and cultural links of the people of West Africa.”
Boakai’s call for urgent steps to put a mechanism in place that would ensure the continued membership of the three states was driven by an acknowledgement of “the severe regional, political, security, and socio-economic implications of the withdrawal of the three Member States from ECOWAS”, he said.
The raft of economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on the four countries can be seen as a necessary coercive diplomatic measure to elicit compliance with the ECOWAS protocols. However, in spite of that, some opinions suggest, it could not have achieved the desired effects and was not a pragmatic approach to expeditiously return the countries to long-lasting constitutional order.
The Burkinabé military leader, Ibrahim Traore, bluntly expressed the disappointment of the people of the Sahel with the sanctions. Traore questioned how a regional organisation, itself a creation of military putschists to promote economic development free from external impositions, would then turn around and impose limitations on popular demands for political overhaul within sovereign states.
Traore says, for him, the breaking point came when, faced with internal crises such as terrorist attacks, which caused thousands of victims in the Sahel, the organisation “showed no support”, then threatened to intervene militarily after the Nigerièn military took “autonomous action”.
The military regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger maintain that the serious threat posed by the insurgency across the Sahel states was made worse by the lack of political will to either wage a decisive battle against the insurgents or equip military personnel to carry out their functions.
As the situation deteriorated further, these countries gave unlimited freedom to foreign military forces who neither had any knowledge of the terrain they were defending nor understood the complex social forces at play.
The military juntas insist that the magnitude of the challenges before their states required martial law to be imposed. How much this has helped in pushing back the insurgents is arguable.
An objective approach to regional politics
ECOWAS’s exemplary successes in strengthening the regional integration principles has obviously been a beacon of pride for the wider continent; however, on the political front, its attempt to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to the adoption of political systems, without recognition of alternative political positions, may have set the stage for what some say could eventually lead to serious frictions in the region.
Another concern that has been raised is what many political watchers have described as inconsistencies in the approach to its political oversight. Among the key governance principles listed in the ECOWAS protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, it asserts that “Every accession to power must be made through free, fair, and transparent election”.
It also insists on “zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means” while it endorses “popular participation in decision-making, strict adherence to democratic principles, and decentralisation of power at all levels of governance”.
Some analysts say, these assertions contradict the reality. ECOWAS, they say, has been unable to effectively impose strict penalties on states where the democratic process is furtively compromised through executive, legislative and judicial manipulations.
When ECOWAS took its decision to impose sanctions, the leaders of its other member-states explained that civil constitutional rule in the region faced an existential threat if such arbitrary seizure of State power was allowed without any serious opposition.
ECOWAS has always insisted that, even if military interventions in states’ political processes are often based on demands by the public for change, they represent an aberration in political authority. They tend to aggravate political tensions by suppressing public opinion and, as long as that remains, it cannot be accepted as a legitimate means of changing government.
This is one of the key areas of contention, some political commentators say. In spite of the fact that military intervention suppresses public opinion and aggravates political tensions, they note, the organisation seems to also ignore the quandary that the military faces in a volatile environment like West Africa’s.
They remain, ironically, the sole arbiters of public order where constitutional manipulations by political leaders trigger civil unrest, making them important stakeholders in maintaining political stability.
This raises an important question that regional political analysts say the organisation must answer if it intends to keep the army away from politics.
Before it stops the military from intervening, they ask, what steps has it put in place to end manipulations of national constitutions by exploiting legislative authority to serve personal whims?
Could it impose strict adherence to demands for structural adjustments in security architecture that would ensure the provision of essential needs of military personnel in times of crisis, as the Sahel faces currently?
ECOWAS had a charter to abide by in reaching its decision on the best approach to address the military takeovers, but the position of several of its Heads of state was self-contradictory.
As its membership demonstrated, the organisation accommodated leaders that held on to power through political artifice, the very reason given for the military interventions in the four states.
A growing opinion in some political circles is that if the organisation can accommodate legislative manipulations that impose presidential term extensions, then it must also recognise alternative approaches that seek to stop these manipulations. This is a bit overstretched, some analysts admit, but insist it is an objective approach if set guidelines are imposed.
The organisation did show some consideration even as it marshalled its forces against the regimes. In some instances, while the organisation censured what it considered the seditious actions of the military coupists, it also provided an avenue for negotiations on an agreed path towards the return to democratic governance.
A major hurdle was the organisation’s insistence on a timeframe that some of the military leadership considered too hasty and lacked understanding of the peculiar social and political circumstances that they were dealing with.
The military leaderships’ timetable, in Mali for example, included conducting referendum to seek public approval for the drafting of a new Constitution, which has been approved and is in force.
In Burkina Faso, it involved what the authorities insisted was a reappraisal of activities and actions carried out by The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).
The electoral body recently presented its 2022-2023 public report. This 90-page document retraces the institution’s steps during the past period and is part of what it’s president, Elysé Ouédraogo, described as the “reappraisal process to prepare operational plans which concern all phases of the electoral process so as to increase professionalism in order to be ready to succeed in the next elections.”
The organisation has shown some consideration for the efforts already made by the juntas. Top diplomatic representatives of some member-states point out that not many sanctions were imposed on Burkina Faso, and Mali had made significant progress in its roadmap by conducting a referendum to hold general elections.
Many wonder if the sanctions pull-back will change the position of the three Sahel states, who have established an alliance of their own, which seeks to evolve into a confederation.
The sanctions may have been attempts at forcing the military regimes to the negotiating table or arm-twist them to rethink their actions, but many believed it was extreme and lacked empathy for the growing calls for political change in those states.
It is uncertain if Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali will take the bait and return to the regional body. However, ECOWAS has taken a bold step to rectify an obvious political miscalculation, and this offers a reassuring hand of fraternity that the region urgently needs.
