ECOWAS

Based on Wikipedia: ECOWAS

In January 2025, three West African nations—Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso—walked out of the regional bloc that had bound them to their neighbors for nearly fifty years. They didn't just leave quietly. Citizens in all three countries held celebrations to mark their departure. The governments accused their former partners of imposing "inhumane" sanctions. And they announced plans to form their own competing alliance, with the eventual goal of merging into a single federated nation.

This dramatic rupture tells us something important about the Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS. It's an organization caught between its original vision of economic cooperation and its more recent role as democracy's enforcer in a region where military coups have become disturbingly routine.

What ECOWAS Actually Is

The Economic Community of West African States is a political and economic union of twelve countries in West Africa. Before the recent departures, it had fifteen members. Together, these nations cover an area roughly half the size of the United States and are home to more than 424 million people—larger than the population of the entire European Union.

The organization was born on May 28, 1975, when leaders signed the Treaty of Lagos in Nigeria's commercial capital. Its founding mission sounds almost utopian: achieve "collective self-sufficiency" by creating a single unified market where goods, money, and people could flow freely across borders.

Think of it as West Africa's attempt to build something like the European Union, but starting from a very different place. When ECOWAS formed, most of its member states had only gained independence in the previous fifteen years. They were newly sovereign nations carved from the territories of three different colonial powers—France, Britain, and Portugal—plus Liberia, which had never been colonized but had its own complex history as a settlement for freed American slaves.

These countries faced enormous challenges. Their economies were small. Their borders were artificial lines drawn by European diplomats who had never visited the continent. And individually, none of them had the scale or resources to compete in the global economy. The logic behind ECOWAS was simple: what they couldn't achieve alone, they might accomplish together.

The Promise of Open Borders

One of ECOWAS's most ambitious achievements is something that citizens of wealthy nations often take for granted: the right to cross borders freely.

Under the ECOWAS Free Movement of Persons Protocol, citizens of member states can enter and reside in any other member country without a visa. A Nigerian can move to Ghana to work. A Senegalese farmer can sell goods in The Gambia. A Beninese student can study in Togo. This freedom of movement is remarkable when you consider that Europeans needed decades to achieve something similar, and that many regions of the world have nothing like it.

The protocol also established the ECOWAS Travel Certificate, essentially a regional passport that allows holders to move across the bloc's internal borders. For people living in a region where the average person earns less than five dollars a day, this freedom represents something profound: the ability to seek opportunity wherever it exists.

There's also a plan called Ecotour, running from 2019 to 2029, which aims to develop tourism across the region by treating all fifteen (now twelve) countries as a single destination. The idea is that visitors might spend a week in Senegal, then cross into The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, experiencing diverse cultures without the hassle of multiple visa applications.

From Trade Bloc to Peacekeeper

But ECOWAS has become something more than an economic community. Over the decades, it has evolved into West Africa's primary peacekeeping force.

This wasn't part of the original plan. The 1975 treaty focused on tariffs, trade, and economic development. But West Africa in the 1990s was a region in flames. Civil wars erupted in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Coups destabilized governments. Millions of refugees fled across borders. It became clear that economic development was impossible without stability, and stability required someone willing to intervene.

ECOWAS filled that role. Member states began sending joint military forces—called ECOMOG, the ECOWAS Monitoring Group—to intervene when political instability threatened the region. Since its creation, ECOWAS has deployed peacekeeping forces seven times. These interventions have occurred in Ivory Coast in 2003, Liberia in 2003, Guinea-Bissau in 2012, Mali in 2013, The Gambia in 2017, Guinea-Bissau again in 2022, and most recently in Benin in 2025.

The Gambia intervention in 2017 was particularly notable. When longtime dictator Yahya Jammeh refused to accept his election defeat and leave office, ECOWAS troops massed at the border. Faced with the prospect of regional military action, Jammeh finally agreed to go into exile. Democracy prevailed without a shot being fired.

This peacekeeping role fundamentally changed what ECOWAS means. It's no longer just about trade and economics. It's about defending democracy itself—or at least that's the stated goal.

The Coup Belt Crisis

Here's where the story gets complicated.

West Africa has earned a grim nickname: the "coup belt." Since 1990, according to the BBC, 78 percent of the 27 military coups in sub-Saharan Africa have occurred in former French colonies. Mali has experienced two coups since 2020. Burkina Faso has had two. Guinea had one. And Niger's democratically elected president was overthrown in July 2023.

Why so many coups in former French territories? Some analysts point to France's continued military presence and economic influence in its former colonies, arguing that this has prevented the development of stable indigenous institutions. The countries that have recently seen coups have all taken steps to distance themselves from Paris—canceling military agreements, expelling French troops, and in Mali's case, even removing French as an official language.

ECOWAS has struggled to respond effectively. Critics say its reactions in the early 2020s were "mild and ineffective." When coups occurred in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, the organization suspended the offending countries but did little else. The juntas remained in power. Democratic governance was not restored.

Then came Niger in July 2023, and ECOWAS took a dramatically harder line.

The Niger Showdown

When soldiers in Niger detained President Mohamed Bazoum and seized power on July 26, 2023, ECOWAS responded with unusual force. The organization didn't just condemn the coup. It threatened military intervention if Bazoum wasn't restored to office by August 7.

The sanctions were crushing. ECOWAS closed all land and air borders between Niger and other member states. It instituted a no-fly zone for commercial aircraft. It froze Niger's assets in regional central banks. It suspended all commercial and financial transactions.

For a landlocked country that depended on its neighbors for access to the sea, these measures were devastating. Until the coup, foreign aid—from countries like the United States and organizations like ECOWAS itself—had accounted for nearly half of Niger's annual budget. When Nigeria, Niger's southern neighbor and the regional economic powerhouse, cut off electricity exports, Niger lost 70 percent of its power supply.

The human cost was immediate. Businesses closed as costs skyrocketed. Children couldn't attend school because supplies couldn't reach the country. The economy contracted sharply.

But the military junta didn't back down.

Instead, Niger's new leaders turned to their neighbors who had also recently experienced coups: Mali and Burkina Faso. On September 16, 2023, the three countries announced the formation of a new alliance—the Alliance of Sahel States. They signed a mutual defense pact, agreeing that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all.

When Niger's government asked the ECOWAS regional court to lift the sanctions in November 2023, ECOWAS lawyers made a striking argument: since the bloc didn't recognize the military government, that government had no legal standing to petition the court. It was a Catch-22. The junta was simultaneously a government capable of being sanctioned and a non-entity incapable of seeking relief.

The Divorce

On January 28, 2024, the three junta-led nations made their move. In a joint statement, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso announced they were withdrawing from ECOWAS "without delay."

They accused the organization of imposing "inhumane" sanctions designed to reverse their respective coups. They pointed to what they saw as ECOWAS's hypocrisy—threatening military intervention against their governments while failing to address other threats to regional stability. And they rejected what they perceived as French influence operating through the bloc.

Under ECOWAS rules, immediate withdrawal isn't possible. Countries must provide one year's notice. So while the three nations announced their departure in January 2024, the withdrawal didn't become official until January 29, 2025.

ECOWAS tried to walk back its hardline approach. In February 2024, it announced it was lifting some sanctions—reopening borders, unfreezing assets, resuming commercial flights. The organization said this was for "humanitarian reasons," but observers saw it as an attempt to convince the departing nations to stay.

It didn't work.

Throughout 2024, ECOWAS leaders continued negotiating. Senegal's president, Basirou Diomaye Faye, held discussions with all three countries, trying to find a formula that would keep them in the bloc while allowing them to maintain their separate security alliance. In December 2024, ECOWAS President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria confirmed the bloc's "political will" to reintegrate the departing nations.

ECOWAS even adopted a transition period—from January 29 to July 29, 2025—during which it said the exits would be "reversible." But the Alliance of Sahel States rejected this proposal outright. On January 29, 2025, as the formal exit took effect, celebrations erupted in Niamey, Bamako, and Ouagadougou.

Two Visions for West Africa

The departure of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso leaves ECOWAS with twelve members: five French-speaking countries (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and Guinea—though Guinea itself is currently suspended following its own coup), five English-speaking countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia), and two Portuguese-speaking nations (Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, though Guinea-Bissau was suspended following a coup in November 2025).

Meanwhile, the three departing nations are building something new. On July 6, 2024, their military leaders signed a pact to form a confederation—a political union of sovereign states with ambitious goals. They plan to pool resources for energy and communications infrastructure. They want to establish a common market. They're proposing a monetary union with a new currency called the Sahel. And their ultimate aim is to federate into a single sovereign nation.

This represents a fundamental challenge to ECOWAS. The departing countries contain over 70 million people and control vast swaths of the Sahel, the semi-arid region between the Sahara Desert and the tropical forests to the south. They also contain significant mineral resources, including uranium in Niger that has historically powered French nuclear plants.

But the Alliance of Sahel States faces enormous challenges. All three countries are among the poorest on Earth. All three are battling jihadist insurgencies that have killed thousands and displaced millions. And all three are now more isolated internationally, having severed ties with both their regional bloc and their former colonial patron.

The Benin Test

Even as it deals with these departures, ECOWAS has shown it still has teeth.

In 2025, when a coup was attempted in Benin, ECOWAS responded with remarkable speed. Within eighteen hours, a joint deployment of soldiers from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Ghana arrived to support the Beninese government. The coup was thwarted.

This swift response suggests that ECOWAS has learned from its earlier, slower reactions. It also demonstrates that the organization's remaining members are committed to defending constitutional order—at least when they act quickly enough.

The Languages of Unity

One of the quieter complexities of ECOWAS involves language. The organization operates in three official languages: French, English, and Portuguese. This reflects the colonial history of the region, where European powers drew boundaries that split ethnic groups and united peoples who had little in common.

Within ECOWAS, there's actually a sub-bloc of French-speaking countries called UEMOA—the West African Economic and Monetary Union. Established in 1994, UEMOA includes eight mostly francophone states that share a common currency, the CFA franc. This currency is pegged to the euro and has historically been guaranteed by the French Treasury, which critics see as a form of continued colonial economic control.

There's also WAMZ—the West African Monetary Zone—comprising six mainly English-speaking countries that have been working since 2000 toward adopting their own common currency, tentatively called the eco. Progress has been slow.

These linguistic and monetary divisions matter. They affect how easily goods and people flow across borders. They influence which countries cooperate most closely. And they reflect deeper questions about identity and power in a region still grappling with its colonial legacy.

What Morocco Wants

In February 2017, Morocco—a North African kingdom that had never been part of ECOWAS—officially requested to join the bloc.

This might seem strange. Morocco is separated from West Africa by the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert. It has a Mediterranean coastline and strong ties to Europe. Culturally and linguistically, it has more in common with the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa than with the diverse nations of sub-Saharan Africa.

But Morocco's application was strategic. The kingdom has been cultivating economic and diplomatic ties throughout Africa. It has invested heavily in West African infrastructure and banking. And joining ECOWAS would give Moroccan businesses preferential access to a market of over 400 million people.

ECOWAS heads of state endorsed the application in principle in June 2017. But the process stalled. West African economic actors worried that Morocco's existing free trade agreements with Europe and the United States would allow cheap imported goods to flood ECOWAS markets, undercutting local producers. Morocco's membership remains on hold.

Meanwhile, Mauritania—a predominantly Arab country that had been a founding ECOWAS member in 1975—withdrew in December 2000, only to sign a new associate-membership agreement in August 2017. It's a reminder that regional alignments in this part of the world remain fluid.

The View from 2025

Fifty years after its founding, ECOWAS stands at a crossroads.

Its original vision—a unified West African market with free movement of goods and people—remains only partially realized. Trade barriers persist. Infrastructure connecting member states is inadequate. And the dream of a single currency for the entire region seems as distant as ever.

Its newer role as democracy's defender has produced mixed results. The organization has successfully intervened to protect constitutional governments in some cases. But it failed to prevent or reverse a wave of coups in the early 2020s. And its hardline response to Niger may have accelerated the departure of three member states rather than bringing them back into line.

The departures themselves raise existential questions. Can ECOWAS function effectively with a competing regional bloc on its borders? Can it maintain its commitment to democratic governance while half a dozen countries in the region are ruled by military juntas? And can it bridge the linguistic, economic, and political divides that continue to fragment West Africa?

For the 424 million people who live in this region, these aren't abstract questions. They determine whether a farmer can sell produce across the border. Whether a student can attend university in a neighboring country. Whether a coup will be met with sanctions that cause children to miss school, or with military intervention, or with nothing more than a stern statement of concern.

ECOWAS began as an economic dream. It evolved into a political project. Now it faces a test of whether regional cooperation can survive the centrifugal forces of nationalism, military ambition, and the long shadow of colonial history. The next few years will determine what kind of organization—if any—emerges on the other side.