ADF STAFF
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed to create a regional force to intervene when member nations are faced with violent extremism or in the event of coups.
The move is intended to “take care of our own security in the region,” Omar Alieu Touray, president of the ECOWAS Commission, told journalists at a December 2022 summit in Nigeria.
ECOWAS is “determined to establish a regional force that will intervene in the event of need” to restore constitutional order in member countries, he added.
The proposed ECOWAS force would be tasked with countering the region’s violent extremist organizations, such as al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. Extremist groups are determined to spread from the Sahel into coastal countries such as Benin, Ghana and Togo.
Observers still are unsure how the new force will differ from existing intervention tools and how it will be used. They cautioned it might be slow to take shape.
“Instituting this new force will take some time,” Emmanuel Balogun, author of the book “Region-Building in West Africa,” told The Washington Post. “It will likely involve a lot of other peace and security stakeholders, potentially including civil society groups who are also invested in the peace and security process.”
The region’s defense ministers were set to meet in 2023 to consider the force’s structure. Touray said the ministers were expected to flesh out a plan for the force in the second half of 2023.
Touray said funding could not depend solely on voluntary contributions.
ECOWAS already has a standby force based in Abuja. There also are several ECOWAS peace support operations, including one each in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.
ECOWAS has a history of supporting missions to counter coups. Just days after the February 2022 attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau, ECOWAS leaders decided to send a stabilization force.
At the time, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo Addo issued a strong warning and used the word “contagion” to describe the region’s epidemic of coups.
“The resurgence of coups d’état in our region is a matter of grave concern,” he said during an emergency summit called to discuss the issue in February 2022.
“This evolution challenges the democratic way of life we have chosen. Let us address this dangerous trend collectively and decisively before it devastates the whole region.”