Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have left ECOWAS, the regional bloc that sanctioned them after military officers seized power in each. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Nnamdi Obasi assesses the import of these events for West Africa's security architecture and Nigeria's influence therein.A string of coups in the central Sahel continues to reverberate in West Africa.
The announcement of withdrawal from ECOWAS ... could have far-reaching diplomatic, security and economic consequences. A strong ECOWAS helps undergird Nigeria's status as a power not just in West Africa but on the continent as a whole. It is a force multiplier for Abuja and a mainstay of the region's security architecture. In its heyday, spanning the 1990s and 2000s, ECOWAS sent peacekeeping missions that helped end armed conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau and helped restore democracy in The Gambia.
The deterioration of relations between Abuja and Niamey also jeopardises - and could eventually scuttle - two important projects: a 284km railway connecting the two countries' second-largest cities ; and the ambitious 4,100km Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline that could deliver as much as 30 billion cubic metres of Nigeria's natural gas to Europe each year.
This suspicion has deepened due to Tinubu's repeated sojourns in Paris since his election in February 2023, including his first international trip as president. On at least two of these occasions, he apparently visited France for medical care, though no official explanation was offered.
ECOWAS has said it will continue to look for a negotiated path forward, although the three Sahel states seem uninterested in talks. On 17 February, at the AU summit in Addis Ababa, Tinubu promised the breakaway countries that:"If you come to the table to discuss important matters in good faith, you will find Nigeria and ECOWAS already sitting there waiting to greet you as the brother that you are".
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