The formation of the sub regional bloc, ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) in May, 1975 created hope of a stable and civilised political and governance systems in member states.
The hope lies in ECOWAS’s main which is objective to maintain security peace and security, democracy and good governance and to improve the people’s welfare through free trade and commerce.
But, these objectives are far from being achieved decades after the creation of ECOWAS owing to what political analysts call “bad politics” compounded by a weak and somewhat corrupt ECOWAS.
ECOWAS is becoming unpopular every passing day owing to allegation of failing to take a proactive stance to governance crisis to prevent wars, revolutions and military take-overs that undermines development in the sub-region.
The sub-regional bloc is similarly of connivance with dictatorial oppressive leaders who lord it over their people, a situation that usually compels the army to come in and sanitise the system.
Such failings, most times, result in coups, counter-coups, revolutions, armed rebellions and wars that damage the political and socio-economic fabric of member states which hunt leaders particularly presidents.
Sometimes, if not most times, West African presidents refuse to give up power even when they lose elections until the force of arms kick them out of power, and later seek asylum in other countries.
The world has seen how several West African leaders live in exile for the rest of their lives after their presidencies because they fail to build and strengthen the pillars of democracy and good governance.
Former President of Sierra Leone, a country where ECOWAS summit is set to be held, is in exile after allegation of financing a coup to topple President Julius Maada Bio in November 26, 2003, a day before the Tripartite Committee was set to investigate the elections of June of the same year.
Ernest Koroma’s arrest and detention came in the aftermath of sustained gunshots in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital that left various police and military armouries ransacked and weapons carted away by unknown gunmen.
A good chunk of the former President’s military aides were arrested and several others killed in the process.
Koroma was arraigned, three days after the coup, in a magistrate court in Freetown and later taken into exile in Nigeria. However, the former President is set to return home according to a press seen by this press, a situation that has provoked several discussions and debates among the public.
The political turbulence during and after the attempted coup in Sierra Leone caused many West Africans to bash at ECOWAS for coming late after lives had been lost.
The signs of the political crisis had crystallised in several ways before the June 24, 2023 election owing to allegations of a foreseen election rigging that came in several forms: failure of election authorities to publish the data of voters ahead of the polls, police and military brutality, arbitrary arrest and detention of opposition politicians, supporters and sympathisers, clamp down on dissent, systematic abuse of human rights among others.
Left without hope, the only tool of resistance in the hands of Sierra Leoneans was ‘protest’ to get the attention of the international community.
The August 10, 2022 protest is one of a series of intermittent waves of demonstrations that was brutally suppressed by the police and the army resulting into the deaths of 26 protesters and six police personnel.
The somewhat deadly protest which occurred just a year to the election was enough for ECOWAS to know that the people were fed up with the Bio/PAOPA regime and had spoken loudly and clearly.
It was up to ECOWAS to take a proactive stance, at that time, to ensure that the election is freely, fairly and credibly conducted to halt further political deterioration and maintain peace and stability.
However, there were arguments among political commentators and the Sierra Leonean public that the November 26, 2023 coup was a ploy to destroy the election probe by the Tripartite Committee allegedly backed by ECOWAS.
Popular arguments hold that the Bio regime was averse to the election investigation knowing fully well that they did not win the election by fair and credible means, but bent on retaining power at all cost.
At the outset, government had set to rig the election and hoped to take the opposition leader, Samura Kamara who is widely seen as winner of the elections to the negotiation table to resolve the issue on friendly terms.
Kamara was APC’s presidential candidate that contested the 2023 election with the incumbent, Maada Bio who was accused of massively rigging the votes.
They had high hope that the political deadlock would be over once the opposition leader agreed to take part in the negotiations, but the situation turned out to be something different.
Other arguments also hold that government officials took part in the negotiation not in good faith but a way to access the US grant of $480m under the MCC (Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
The Bio regime was going berserk close the elections after losing the trust of the development partners particularly World Bank and IMF.
MCC usually sets out good governance benchmarks which countries are expected to pass with high scores to get the grant.
The ‘Bad faith’ allegations seemingly became watertight owing to feet dragging by government to set up and fund the Tripartite Committee to look into the alleged election fraud.
The Tripartite Committee however went into full swing only after the US government offered $1.5m dollars to their coffers to fasttrack the election probe.
It is clear even after the investigation ends with 80 recommendations proffered for electoral reforms, the implementation is still at a snail-pace not until when the international moral guarantors issued the deadline of December 31, 2026.
But, many say the is also a wait-and-see affair. ECOWAS lapses are not only visible in Sierra Leone but also other West African countries too.
Under ECOWAS’s watch, former Guinean President, Alpha Condeh attempted to manipulate the national constitution between 2019 and 2020 to go in for a third term after two terms (ten years) of presidency.
At the beginning of the plan, the sub-regional bloc waited and watched as the events unfolded without any decisive action to prevent the slide into the political crisis into which Guinea wallowed for years.
The West African body, ECOWAS came in only after the army staged a coup against President Condeh who was placed under house arrest for days before flown out of the country.
Condeh’s overthrow plunged Guinea into a political gridlock that took ECOWAS months to solve by expelling the country from its membership.
However, Guinea was re-admitted to ECOWAS in January, 2026 lifting all sanctions against it after the 2025 general election.
The former coup leader, Mahmadi Doumbuya is now a full-fledge democratic President.
On the other side of the coin, there was an ongoing debate in Guinea and beyond that the September 5, 2021 coup was a political drama acted on a stage with Condeh and Doumbuya as the central characters with ECOWAS playing a major role.
The aim of the dramatised coup, according to socio-political analysts, was to derail the political chances of the then opposition leader, Cellou Dalein Diallo.
Analysts hold the view that the two major Guinean ethnic groups, the Soso and the Mandingo feared the rise of a Fula President in Guinea, and staging a coup is the only means to dampen such presidential ambition.
Although Guinea is now a democratic order as the dust seems to have settled, President Condeh is now in exile.
What about Gambia’s political crisis of 2017 caused by Yayah Jammeh’s refusal to hand over power to the winner and current President, Adama Barrow?
ECOWAS is also accused of making blunders since it failed to take a proactive stance.
Ex-president Jammeh who is in Equatorial Guinea on exile ruled the Gambia for 22 years with iron fist resulting into serious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.
Secret extra-judicial killings, disappearances of prisoners from state detention centres, suppression of free speech and killing of journalists prominently hallmarked Jammeh’s regime.
The question many West Africans pose is where was ECOWAS when Jammeh was committing such atrocities.
ECOWAS was there but waited only to act in 2017.
It threatened a military action against Jammeh if he failed to give up power, but such action was said to have been moved by the United States where the winner, Adama Barrow had lived for years before his election victory.
Although Jammeh exited power, many Gambians bore the murder brunt brought on them by his killing machines.
Records by Gambia’s defunct Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission showed that Jammeh committed some of the worst atrocities that call for trials at an international tribunal precisely the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
The list of exiled presidents is not exhaustive, with more names soon to pop up in the near future as ECOWAS plays second fiddle to corrupt, narcotic and tyrannical West African Leaders.