How West Africa built the muscle to rout dictators and keep the peace
February 3, 2017
Following the resolution of the political impasse in The Gambia, a great deal of attention has focused on the role played by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). The regional body brought a swift end to the potentially explosive crisis sparked by the refusal of former President Yahya Jammeh to hand over to the newly elected Adama Barrow.
Jammeh’s flight to exile was preceded by weeks of diplomacy to persuade him to hand over power peacefully. When this failed regional troops and military assets were mobilised to install Barrow forcibly. The rest is history. Barrow is now officially in the presidential seat.
This resounding success, unrivalled by any African regional organisation, has taken decades to craft. It is remarkable to think that at its inception in 1975, joint military action was not even on the cards.
The fractious 1960s
By the close of the early 1960s most countries in the West African sub-region had gained political freedom from colonial powers. They adopted a variety of political systems including multiparty democracy, one-party civilian administrations and military autocracies. The region developed quite a reputation for military coups. There were more in the region than anywhere else on the continent.
Initial attempts to form Ecowas floundered in the early 1960s. This was due largely to the differences between Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, and Nigeria’s first prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, on the kind of integration necessary for the states in the region.
The fall of these two personalities from power in 1966 did not end the political rivalries in the region. Attempts at integration were further delayed by the civil war in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970. Its aftermath further affected any chances at integration due to the struggle over the supremacy of the West African region between Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire along Anglo-Francophone lines.
