Kelechi Deca
In March this year, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) commenced the celebration of its golden jubilee anniversary, an event that is scheduled to last for two months with different activities. However, it appears no one is asking the question; what is ECOWAS celebrating.
What are the tangible achievements one can point at as evidence that the sub-regional economic community has at least met the goals it set out to achieve when leaders of 16 countries of West African sub-region met in Lagos in 1975 to sign the Treaty establishing the union? Is it not worthy of not that the group has lost four of its members states is a sign that it has grown to become another social club with little or nothing to offer its members?
At what point should the leadership across West Africa assume responsibility and stop pointing fingers at anyone for being responsible for their irresponsibility? Yes, I understand quite well, the depth of the damages of colonialisation. It is like inherited family dysfunction. But at what point should we stand up and remind ourselves that as human beings, we also owe ourselves certain expectations? At what point should determinism give way for possibilism?
That’s the question that keeps me awake every night whenever I try to examine the state of affairs in our continent, Africa. A movement across member states of ECOWAS is still like navigating through a jungle.
The Southern Africa Development Community is just 32 years. If you’ve not travelled across their borders before, give it a try, observe the ease of movement and the roads, and let us compare notes. Ethiopia singlehandedly built a 760 kilometers standard gauge railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. I watched as Ethiopia built 2,150 kilometers of railways crisscrossing the country in less than a decade. They’re also Africans.
Sometime in 2015 at an event organized by The African Development Bank (AfDB) on integration in Africa, the issue of free movement of goods and persons came up, and somehow, the discussion veered into the Lagos-Dakar Corridor. As a humble Reporter, I listened attentively as one expert and another spoke “big English and Big French” to garnish their perspectives.
During the Q & A session, the journalists were given the floor to ask questions. That is only time I come alive at events. A simple question I asked was “How many among the team of experts who have been speaking on this Corridor has traveled by road from Lagos to Abidjan, or from Abidjan to Lagos?
It was not a funny thing. But they all know what the problems are and the best way to tackle them, yet none has the practical experience of what it takes for an ECOWAS citizen to drive from Lagos to Dakar.
The mental notification of that event in 2015 popped up on my mind earlier this year while going through the report of the Retrocession Agreement signed between the ECOWAS Commission and the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the 1,080km Abidjan-Lagos Highway project in Abuja. But what actually caught my attention were the contracts that were also signed to cover three aspects of the feasibility – socio-economic, environmental impact assessment and detailed engineering design studies for the highway.
The proposed Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway, a six-lane motorway, will connect (Abidjan, Accra, Cotonou, Lomé and Lagos) It will also link very vibrant seaports in West Africa to all the landlocked countries of the region, namely Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Unfortunately, the three landlocked West African countries have pulled out of ECOWAS, they have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a regional bloc established in September 2023 which was initially conceived as a mutual defense pact in response to potential military intervention by ECOWAS after a coup in Niger.
However, the group later announced their departure from the bloc in February 2024, citing reasons such as drifting from the ideals of its founding fathers, influence of foreign powers, and perceived lack of accountability. Last week, they announced the signing of a new project with Morocco that would give them access to the sea via Western Sahara.
It is worth remembering that ECOWAS had in 2014, signed a treaty on the establishment of trans-ECOWAS Highway. That treaty was entered into by the Presidents of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigerian and Togo, so what happened to the earlier treaty that was not implemented, and did it take 10 years to wake up with another one?
Interestingly, to get the project off the ground, the colonialists through the European Union donated $10.38m while the AfDB approved a US$12.6m financing package, bringing the total funding for the feasibility studies to US$22.7m.
I think with the smell of money, there would be flurry of activities in Abuja over the next year. I still hope that something tangible comes
I still remember when I first did a road trip covering entire West Coast Corridor. It was a horrible experience. After escaping the madness that is Ijanikin to Seme Border, there was semblance of civility to Ilakonji on the Benin/Togo Border, then down to Aflao, another Seme-like beehive of activities but without the high level of Seme impunity.
Then I drove to Elubo, the border between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, from there through Duekoue Department to Man, and Danane to Dakay border town. Unfortunately, after Cote d’Ivoire, it is a question of whatever you see, you take.
It was like descending into 20th century down to Bo-Waterside border between Liberia and Sierra Leone. From Freetown to Conakry Guinea takes about 5 hours through the Pork Loko N4 border, after that you head to Bissau through some of the most beautiful breathtaking forests you may see in your life.
But there were a few places where all you see is huge forests and smoking hills with very horrible road conditions through the N3 before linking Mbak, then use the N5 to connect to Zunguichor to Sekoure Karang then down to the A1 to Dakar.
It is not for the feint hearted, and there are no way goods and services could make that trip in good condition. The delays at various borders can be nerve cracking because they are mostly unnecessary all aimed at squeezing bribes from the traveler.
If after 50 years the entire member states of the ECOWAS cannot build a modern highway connecting the entire stretch from Lagos to Dakar which would contribute immensely to the ease of movement of persons and goods which is still the first objective of the union, then ECOWAS has failed.
KelechiDeca, a journalist and public affairs commentator, writes from Lagos
