The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said on Sunday the region risked disintegration and deteriorating insecurity after junta-led Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger clarified their goals to leave the community by inking down a confederation treaty.
The Alliance of Sahel States treaty, inked down on Saturday, highlighted the three nations’ assurance to betray the 15-member regional bloc, which has been encouraging them to revert to democratic rule.
ECOWAS commission president Omar Touray communicated freedom of movement and a common market of 400 million individuals were a few of the significant benefits of the near 50-year-old bloc, yet that these were under threat if the three nations left.
Funding of financial projects worth more than $500 million in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger ought to likewise be halted or suspended, Touray told an ECOWAS summit in Nigerian capital Abuja.
“Considering these benefits, it is evident that disintegration will not only disrupt the freedom of movement and settlement of people, but it will also worsen insecurity in the region,” he said.
The three nations’ withdrawal will be a significant catastrophe for security collaboration especially in terms of intelligence gathering and sharing in the fight against terrorism, he added.
ECOWAS leaders assembled at the summit to discuss the ramifications of the treaty by the Alliance of Sahel States, whose juntas grabbed control in a series of upsets in the three states in 2020-2023 and cut off military and diplomatic ties with regional allies and Western powers.
A choice on a regional standby force to combat terrorism and a regional currency would likewise be made, Touray said.
