Under the leadership of Nigerian President Bora Tinubu, Ecowas, an economic community in West African countries, is currently working on the recent establishment of a powerful 5,000-person ECOWAS standby force.
Additionally, there are quite a few security threats in West Africa. They exist primarily in the form of Islamic terrorists, such as Boko Haram, Ansal, al-Qaeda in Maghrib, Akim, and semi-Janjaweed groups such as armed pastor Fulani, who are virtually unchecked in most of Nigeria.
Many of these groups faced the MNJTF, a multinational joint task force built by Nigeria, Chad and the Republic of Niger. However, due to the “distrust” by the Nigerian government and its recent withdrawal from Niger from the coalition, the MNJTF collapsed. Activation of the ECOWAS standby force may help ease this blank.
With this force’s activation, ECOWAS is expected to move to the next stage of evolution. It is to create a common currency and market to take advantage of the comparative benefits of member countries.
We invite ECOWAS to learn from its own recent failures and to ensure that the standby force is carried out responsibly. It should help member states drive away the threat, such as jihadist costumes that were used solely for peacekeeping purposes and felt they were fertile ground for the massive open Sahel Africa to breed.
Furthermore, this force must not be deployed for aggressive action against a country or regime in power. We must respect the sovereignty of the nation and adopt mechanisms of diplomacy and sanctions rather than mortal responses to the internal affairs of our member states.
Ecowas must also learn from the radioactive nature of recent failures to “flash” the military government of the Republic of Niger with the urge to powers such as the US and France.
The region escaped the war by its skin of its teeth by listening to wise advice to drop ideas. This was what caused Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from Ecowas and form their own alliance, D’Etats Sahel, AES. ECOWAS must keep the doors open for the return of these previous member states.
The ECOWAS standby force should avoid the mistake of waiving funding and operational liability for Nigeria alone. There have been a large number of other member states having almost violated during the recent inauguration. Nigeria is already overburdened by anxiety.
It cannot carry the burden of Ecowas’ defense alone!
