Can Ghana’s President Mahama reset ECOWAS?

Francis Kokutse, in Accra, Ghana 

Francis Kokutse is a journalist based in Accra and writes for Associated Press (AP), University World News, as well as Science and Development.Net. He was a Staff Writer of African Concord and Africa Economic Digest in London, UK. 

There are times, when everything looks bleak, that one person comes up and brings light to wherever there is darkness. It looks like the lot has fallen on Ghana’s new President, John Mahama, to help return the almost moribund regional grouping, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), back to life.

During his campaign towards the December 7, 2024 election, the President promised to “reset”  the country’s economy that had been battered. It was based on this that he won a landslide victory. Apart from his promise to rebuild Ghana with his “reset” agenda, President Mahama is also known to have a friendly disposition.

It is therefore not surprising that, during his inauguration on January 7, 2025, the four military leaders in West Africa: Niger’s General Abdourahmane Tchiani, Burkina Faso’s Captain Ibrahim Traore, and Mali’s Colonel Assimi Goita and Mamady Doumbouya of Guinea, who have faced sanctions imposed on them by ECOWAS by the regional grouping, for toppling their governments in coups, deemed it fit to attend.

Having been ostracised by the rest of ECOWAS, their presence at President Mahama’s inauguration could be calculated to tell the other leaders in the region that they would prefer some kind of collaboration with Ghana. But this cannot happen outside the spheres of ECOWAS because President Mahama cannot afford to do so. Thus, it is also possible that there is some readiness on the part of the leaders of ECOWAS to lean on President Mahama to negotiate the return of the four countries into their fold.

If this is the case, then President Mahama has a lot of work to do because in July last year, Tchiani, Traore, and Goita, signed a treaty to herald the coming into being of the Alliance of  Sahel States (AAS) signalling their breakaway from ECOWAS. The AAS  treaty was hailed as a step “towards greater integration” between the three countries, in the latest showing of their shift away from traditional regional and Western allies.

Their efforts have, however, met the condemnation of ECOWAS leaders who are demanding the return to democracy in the four countries. Attending the inauguration of President Mahama, however, did give some hope, that perhaps, he has some rapport with these leaders and may help to bring them back into the fold of ECOWAS. In fact, just a week after taking over, the Malian Prime Minister, Abdoulaye Maïga came visiting. In addition, President Mahama has appointed Lt. Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, a former national security coordinator, as an envoy to the AAS. 

Some analysts see this as a first in the region and probably an attempt to help bring back the AAS into the ECOWAS fold.

It does look like the leaders of AAS see President Mahama differently from the other leaders in the ECOWAS region. A report by Ivan Loshkaryov in the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) said Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter that brought into being the AES in response to the sanctions that have been imposed on them.  

“For the three landlocked nations, those sanctions had serious repercussions, aggravating the socioeconomic situation inside those countries and fuelling the growing activity of terrorist groups there,” the report said.

The Liptako-Gourma Charter, suggests the AAS, pursues one goal only: establishing an architecture of collective defence and mutual support. While the first element of the goal is simple and clear, the proposition of mutual support is elaborated further on in the text. It is not only about defence against attacks by third parties, but also about the unblocking of roads, transportation hubs and strategic infrastructure, as well as about joint activities to stop armed rebellions by peaceful and forceful methods.

The RIAC report said the  emergence of a new military-political alliance overhauls the balance of power in the region, as it leads to the division of Western Africa into two blocs of states, with military tensions and sanctions pressure persisting between them. As the institutions and cooperation mechanisms in the AAS  are being established, competition with ECOWAS will be stiffening, which is a tall order to the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger: moving forward towards their goals, while avoiding an open conflict with the Community. 

In this regard, existing difficulties in the formation of the Alliance can be seen not only as problems, but also as a way to achieve the long-term interests of the three Sahel nations. The main reproach against the AAS is the lack of common institutions, supranational coordination bodies. However, it is likely that they will not be needed in their most common form

Loshkaryov argued that the AAS has a huge advantage over ECOWAS. Almost 50 years after its existence, the ECOWAS harmonisation of decisions in the Community has overgrown with bureaucratic inertia which takes time to overcome.

“For historical reasons, ECOWAS lacks regulatory cohesion – a commonality of understanding on key goals and objectives. In particular, the Community has member states with specific positions on the situation in the region (Benin, Senegal, Togo). This only complicates the process of political bargaining: before agreeing on the amount of resources to be allocated, it is necessary to decide on the common interest and its specific indicators,” the report said.

It said the AAS  has so far had a very flexible structure. By its very nature the Liptako-Gourma Charter is a framework document that outlines a possible but by no means exhaustive list of possible areas for joint work, adding that, harmonizing the positions of the three states is by definition easier than those of  members of ECOWAS. 

According to Loshkaryov,  almost immediately after the Alliance was formed, its member states began coming up with initiatives to broaden the scope of cooperation. Thus, in November 2023, finance ministers of the three nations agreed on proposals to broaden the scope of economic cooperation and establish a committee to prepare proposals on a monetary union. 

The report said one side of the Alliance’s upsides is that it may benefit from narrowly focused cooperation mechanisms (FX operations, border security, logistics corridors, technology transfer) and intensive inter-ministerial consultations as opposed to cumbersome supranational institutions and ambitious declarative goals of building democracy as the “collective dream” in ECOWAS. That is, although President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has referred to the Alliance as a “phantom union,” it is far from certain that this figure of speech will look too offensive in the medium term.

It is not yet clear but, ten days after taking over, President Mahama flew to Senegal and Mali, ostensibly to hold talks to find a lasting solution to conflicts in the Sahel, that has ripple effects on countries in the south. Benin has been at the receiving end over the past few months with armed attacks on its northern border. Therefore such shuttle diplomacy that President Mahama embarked upon are targeted at ensuring peace. With this comes the economic benefits to the countries in the south that the Sahel states, that are landlocked,  depend for their exports and imports.

Given the fact that the other members who imposed the sanctions on Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea may not have the trust to bring back the renegade states, President Mahama who was not part of the decision making at the time, and the fact that, he seems to have developed some trust with the countries involved, it is possible that he might be able to find a way of bringing them back into the ECOWAS fold. The posture of some of the leaders, especially President Tinubu and Ghana’s former President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was to the extreme. At a point there were threats to use military attacks on these countries to force them to return to democracy.

Perhaps, President Mahama may try to use persuasion to get the countries back instead of using the threat of force which didn’t work in the first place. Should he succeed, this may count as one of his legacies, that is if he is able to sort out his domestic headaches in the next four years.

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