By Iddi Yire
Accra, Mar 05, GNA – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has lauded the contributions of the West Africa Democracy Solidarity Network’s (WADEMOS) contribution towards addressing democratic recession in West Africa.
Dr Abdel-Fatau Musah, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, ECOWAS Commission, gave the commendation in a keynote address read on his behalf at the 2025 WADEMOS Annual Regional CSOs Concerning in Accra on the theme “Regional Integration at Crossroad: ECOWAS@50, Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and the Future of Multilatilaterism”.
WADEMOS is a non-partisan, independent civil society-led transnational democracy solidarity network, which consists of over 30 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) located in 15 countries in West Africa.
WADEMOS mobilizes, coordinates, and leverages the collective power of civil society and other pro-democracy actors, resources, and opportunities within the West African Region to advance, defend, and reinvigorate democracy and promote democratic norms and reforms in the sub-region.
Dr Musah, said he was particularly delighted that there were concerted efforts and synergy by civil society actors led by WADEMOS to address present democratic recession in West Africa; adding that these initiatives were crucial as the present context of democracy, peace and security were complex, making single factor explanations, or overly simplistic solutions, ineffective.
He said there was therefore an urgent and compelling need for dedicated and strategic collective engagements of critical stakeholders, particularly the civil society to join hand with other democratic forces towards achieving stable and enduring democratic processes and regional integration in West Africa.
He said democratic governance, peace and security, the solution to the crises that were ravaging some of countries in West Africa subregion, such as terrorism, degradation of the environment, migration, the retreat of democratic values, unconstitutional changes of government, all these require a real increase in Community citizens’ mobilization, sacrifices and engagement towards preserving ECOWAS legacy in order to put a definitive end to all of these prevailing challenges.
According to the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), military takeovers in Mali, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Gabon between 2020 and 2023 has been enough to raise alarms about the threats to democracy in the sub region.
Touching on ECOWAS and its relations with the AES, Dr Musah said in keeping with these numerous success stories and given its geographic proximity and cultural affinity, West Africa was a historically integrated region, composed of ethno settlement areas that were disrupted by the political borders arbitrarily imposed during colonization and balkanization of Africa.
“What binds West Africa is beyond formal institutions, rather geographic proximity and cultural affinity rate higher in our relationship,” he said.
“Hence, despite the formal breakaway of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, through the formation of the AES, interaction among West African citizens and prospects of these robust interactions would be fine-tuned by the decisions of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government.”
He said the Authority had lifted most of the sanctions on the AES countries, retaining only suspension in its decision-making organs of the Community, like what the African Union currently has.
He reiterated that this decision reflects both pragmatism and the spirit of solidarity and accommodation that have characterized ECOWAS over the years guided by the principles of finding local solutions to address challenges facing us as a region.
Dr Musah said in the same vein, the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, at its 66th Ordinary Summit, held on 15th December, 2024 in Abuja, Nigeria, provided another six month window of opportunity for further engagement with the AES countries through the leadership of President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye of Senegal and President Faure Gnassingbé of Togo, as co-mediators.
He said it was their hope that this new opportunity would yield the expected return of the AES countries to the Community and to allow them to resolve their differences as a family.
He said the ECOWAS Commission was set to convene a Special Summit on the Future of Regional Integration in West Africa.
He noted that the Special Summit would seek, among others, to ignite a regional conversation on the evolving context of governance, peace, and security, as well as regional challenges and meet aspirations of future generations of ECOWAS citizens.
Dr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, Director of Programmes and Policy Engagement, CDD-Ghana, said the trend of democratic erosion in Africa, and especially in West Africa, was worrying.
“We have seen that since 2020, soldiers have pushed out elected governments in six countries. Presidents have defied constitutional time limits to claim power in office. And others use subtle methods to erode democracy. But things have not always been like this,” he said.
He said West Africa led the way in the third wave of democratisation in Africa in the 1990s; and that since then, a combination of constitutional reforms, democratic elections, and presidential
time limits had produced peaceful government and leadership transition in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.
He said to curb the sub-region’s reversal into authoritarian regimes, military dictators, and civil conflicts, both ECOWAS and the African Union had adopted protocols of democracy and good governance, which defines and outlaws’ unconstitutional changes of government.
GNA