Antwi-Danso: Withdrawal of three ECOWAS members could disintegrate regional bloc

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) risks disintegrating following the decision by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to withdraw from the regional bloc, the dean of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Professor Vladimir Antwi-Danso, has said.

“The implications are dire. If these three countries, contiguous as they are, are able to really have a formidable union, there is the possibility that other states might join them,” Antwi-Danso told the Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday (29 January).

“It will also means that any other member of the rest of ECOWAS who would want to trade with that new union will be taken as a third country … and you know, when you fragment trade that way, then we are killing ECOWAS,” he told the ABS host Kwaku Nhyira-Addo.

Antwi-Danso added: “Security wise, it is also not good, because then they form one union with the common external tariffs, and then [when it comes to] movement between that union and ECOWAS and UEMOA, [it will be] like the fragmentation is so difficult that ECOWAS has to use diplomacy to bring them back. Other than that, I see the total disintegration of ECOWAS.”

The three junta-led West African states on Sunday (28 January) announced that they are leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional economic bloc that has been urging them to return to democratic rule, with immediate effect.

The decision by the three countries, announced in a joint statement read out on Nigérienne national television, is a blow to the bloc’s regional integration efforts after it suspended the three countries following their most recent military takeovers.

Since the coups and despite the sanctions, negotiations and threats of military intervention, the leaders of the three countries have failed to provide a clear timetable for return to constitutional rule.

Listen to Prof Vladmir Antwi-Danso in the audio clip attached below: