ECOWAS Commission President Dr Omar Touray said on Saturday that West Africa is currently facing security and democracy crises that have threatened to derail the sub-region’s integration agenda.
He made this known at the African Public Square (APS) Second Continental Edition Conference on Friday in Abuja, with the theme: Future-proof Regional Integration in Africa: ECOWAS @50.
APS is a platform that was created to instigate debates on African peace, security and development among African public intellectuals of diverse backgrounds.
Touray, represented by Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, said the Commission had begun a series of introspective conversations to address the entire ECOWAS integration framework.
According to him, the process is citizen-led and the result of all the deliberations will end in a draft pact that will determine the path that ECOWAS will follow in the next 15 years.
“I would say we have a security crisis, and then we have a democracy crisis today in West Africa. We have to navigate a lot of what has been said about terrorism, violence, terrorism and so on.
“Democracy is also in crisis. It is in crisis today in West Africa, and it does not seem that the leaders have learned their lesson,” he said.
It traced the evolution of ECOWAS from its formation in 1975 amid linguistic and colonial divisions to its resilience during post-Cold War conflicts and the current struggle to navigate internal democratic crises in a changing global order.
Touray warned that the world was entering what he called an era of “warm war,” a phase of global realignments and strategic rivalry, and urged West Africa to make deliberate decisions to protect its collective interests.
He denounced growing political exclusion in some member states, which he said undermined democracy and contributed to the recent withdrawal of Sahel states from the regional bloc.
“Only a renewed commitment to inclusion, good governance and dialogue can bring estranged members back into the ECOWAS family.
“The current popular method of team capture is for Member States to remove dangerous opponents from the electoral process, whether political parties or candidates,” he said.
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