Trouble in West Africa: the ‘Coup Belt’ in 2024

Image: Ansongo, Mali – December 2015, Malian soldiers train with French military before the coup storm. Credit: Shutterstock / Fred Marie

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took its first breath with the Lagos Treaty of May 28, 1975.

It proclaimed the familiar objectives and good intentions that define any such bloc, that is, the economic integration of member states unhindered by local trade barriers and with no hindrance of labor and capital flow.

This political and economic union, with English, French and Portuguese as its official languages, comprised fifteen countries in West Africa—Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’ Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo—home to a total population of over 424 million.

As such, its coordinated economic policy that championed liberalization and transparency promised to generate predictability, economies of scale, and greater opportunity for the investor, business owner, and working citizen.

Yet the best intentions on a macro scale are often undermined by localized turmoil.

The potential departure of ECOWAS member states today, much like the UK’s Brexit referendum of June 2016, threatens the bloc with more than a loss of prestige. It amounts to a shift in economic dynamics between the conflicting parties. And it all dates back to a series of coups d’état.

From Coups d’État to Sanctions

Following the overthrow Niger’s government by elements within the army in 2023, alarm bells were ringing wildly in coup-plagued West Africa.

Three other members, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali had been suspended or sanctioned in the preceding years, each having succumbed to military rule during that period. And so the fear of regional coup contagion in the so-called “coup belt” prompted the harshest sanctions ever imposed by ECOWAS.

All borders with Niger were bolted while financial transactions were suspended, and Niger’s assets in external banks were frozen.

The tragedy, of course, is that the pain of those sanctions was borne most heavily by the innocent citizen of Niger with no say in political developments.

Power outages and shortages of staple foodstuffs and medicines ensued, as well as the real and present fear of military intervention.

Critics also pointed out the longer-term impact of sanctions, such as damaged cross-border trade along the Nigeria-Niger border and a climate of uncertainty that threatened to risk major infrastructure projects of regional economic significance, including rail and gas projects.

Meanwhile, although not recognized as a legitimate government by ECOWAS, Niger’s junta opted to stage a legal challenge to the sanctions. It also actively obstructed relief deliveries to deflect the blame onto the bloc.

First Stick, Now Carrot

Returning to the present and we observe ECOWAS working to keep the bloc intact amid a potential exit by Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

On January 28, 2024, the military juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger announced their intention to exit ECOWAS.

In shock, ECOWAS responded with a bid to negotiate their return by offering sanctions relief and invitations to technical meetings. Appeals that have failed to receive an affirmative response at the time of writing.

Indeed, as of August, the bloc’s Parliament was still looking to the diplomatic approach in contrast to the aforementioned period of heavy sanctions to avoid the departure of the three wayward members.

With Nigeria effectively the bloc’s wheelhouse, Deputy Speaker of its House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, announced that official diplomatic visits would follow formal letters to those countries.

“There are already mechanisms in place,’ he noted, ‘…through what is called parliamentary diplomacy, to reach out to them [and] we will open up the doors for them to come back to the family; We need them.”

Meanwhile, the ECOWAS Parliament is mulling reforms that would expand legislative independence, supposedly in light of shifting political sands and to present a responsive demeanor in the international arena.

One might make the case that the benefits of belonging to an economic bloc laid out above surpass localized political conflict.

Yet ECOWAS is also arguably caught between a rock and a hard place in attempting to appease political regimes at odds with its democratic credentials.