Abstract
The purpose of my research is to examine the roles and contributions of nigeria in the
development of regional organization with ECOWAS as the case study
Primary and secondary sources of data were used in the collection and collation of data Which
was generated from relevant empirical literature, government documents, gazettes and series of
unstructured and informal interviews with few Nigerian diplomats who were present or have
participated in ECOWAS regional development and decision making phases And this enabled
the total capturing of the study Nigeria has played a major role in achieving ECOWAS
objectives and it’s original objectives is based on regional organization. The primary objective
for the creation of ECOWAS as regional organization was the attainment of regional economic
development, although, the challenges of regional security threats have been a constant concern
of ECOWAS countries. In fact Nigeria as a country had been a major source of assistance in
achiev
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Regional organizations are a subcategory of international organization; they can be
financial and nonfinancial institutions. They consist of those supranational institutions whose
members are governments or monetary authorities of economies that are located in a specific
region of the world. Regional organizations, for instance, Currency Union Central Banks
(CUCB), are created for many purposes include supporting, guiding, and even governing aspects
of the economic relationships or integration processes among the regions‘ economies. As with
other international organizations, regional organizations such as Economic Community Of West
Africa States (ECOWAS) are established by political agreement among organization members
that has the status of international treaties, and are accorded appropriate privileges and
immunities and are not subject to the laws and regulations of the economies in which they are
located.
In practice also, the UN has begun to work with regional and intergovernmental
organizations. Some of these organizations, like OSCE, AU, ECOWAS and NATO, have made
conflict prevention part of their core mandates and have assumed active roles in selected
conflicts. NATO and the UN have been involved jointly in conflicts in the Balkans, Kosovo,
Afghanistan and Iraq. ECOWAS and the UN have played a significant role in Liberia where
ECOWAS created a military observer group (ECOMOG) in 1990. It has also deployed forces to
Sierra Leone (1998), Guinea Bissau (1998), Côte d‘Ivoire (2002). The UN Operation in Liberia
(UNOMIL), set up in 1993, became the first operation to be undertaken in cooperation with a
peacekeeping operation established by another organisation, in this case ECOWAS. More
recently, the AU has been involved in Chad, Côte d‘Ivoire and most importantly in Darfur. In
this regard resolution 1706 which mandated innovative and substantial UN assistance to AU
Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is a possible benchmark for the future (Abba, 2000).
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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional organization
of a group of fifteen West African countries in November 1975.It has its secretariat and
headquarters in Abuja. Nigeria. The original objectives of the organization as contained in the
ECOWAS treaty are among other things to promote co-operation and regional integration
leading to the establishment of an economic union in West Africa in order to raise the standards
of living of its people and to maintain economic stability. Established in 1975 originally as a
regional organization to essentially promote the economic integration of the fifteen Member
States, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been gradually
transformed, under the pressure of political events, into an organization also responsible for
finding solutions to armed conflicts and other political crisis which were undermining peace and
security within the community space (Adebayo, 2007).
Basically, looking at the roles and relevance of Nigeria in regional organisation of
ECOWAS was strategically set to achieve this objective, to a large extent hampered by political
crisis in the region and rivalries between heads of states for the leadership of regional
organizations, there was the need to gradually attach greater importance to peace, defense and
security issues Aluko, 1981; Rhodes, 1995). The decade of the 1990‘s has been particularly
decisive for ECOWAS evolution into an organization capable of intervening diplomatically and
militarily in cases of serious threats to the security of a member state and within the community
space in general ECOWAS consequently played a key role in the arduous resolution of
protracted and devastating civil wars in Liberia (1990-1997 and 2003-2007) and Sierra Leone
(1991-2002) which sometimes spilled over into guinea and threatened to cause unrest in the
entire west Africa region. ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group drawn from the Nigerian
federal army and other member states of the organization. This was also seen in the Malian crisis
to prevent the spilling of the crisis into other parts of West Africa especially Mali‘s neighboring
countries.
According to Olakounle, (2010) it was several years of ECOMOG‘s military presence under
extremely difficult material and security conditions and at the instigation of the regional military
power; Nigeria that Sierra Leone and Liberia received United Nations Peacekeeping operation.
ECOMOG was indeed accused of behaving as a warring party to the fighting conflict in Liberia
and Sierra Leone or as an occupation force. However, its presence at the height of the fighting
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and chaos in these two countries, when there was no peace to be maintained played a major role
in the stabilization of the Mano River basin region. ECOWAS was led to intervene vigorously in
the management of conflict in the 1990s before establishing the institutional and operational
basis of a regional mechanism for peace and security supported by the texts of the organization.
This study is an analysis of Nigeria‘s roles, and strategic actions on ECOWAS as a
regional organisation. Nigeria acts in her capacity as an individual state and as a member of the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Nigeria‘s roles towards ECOWAS
can be traced as far back as 1960 and even before then. The motivation for this inquiry stems
from a need to understand the dynamics of regional peacekeeping particularly in relation to West
African peacekeeping missions. It is against this backdrop that this study critically examines the
roles and contribution of Nigeria in the development of regional organisation with focus on
Economic Community of West Africa States based on challenges and coping strategies resorted
to as means of survival in the society.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Nigeria as a country has contributed in the development of regional organisation. The
weaker states in the West African region had difficulty mobilising the resources required to deal
decisively with the Liberian crisis, becoming overwhelmingly dependent upon one regional
power to sustain the operation (Offiong and Idise, 2000). The ECOMOG operation occurred at a
difficult time for the states in the region, when they themselves were involved in painful
economic reforms and their own legitimacy, in most cases, was subject to internal criticism and
pressures. The intervention was also complicated by linguistic and geopolitical rivalries and by
cleavages within ECOWAS itself, and undermined by debilitating arguments about its legitimacy
and organisation.
Coetzee, (2008) observed that these difficulties were partially due to the fact that
ECOWAS and its member countries, like the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), had been
notoriously slow to take issues of regional security seriously. Long standing mutual security
protocols that should have allowed ECOWAS to anticipate crises were not implemented.
Regionalism also proved as much a source of weakness as of strength in the operation: its
advantages were genuine interest (as well as self-interest) in the issues and intimate knowledge
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of the local political terrain (both necessary for sustained and meaningful engagement); its
disadvantages were the danger of partisanship and the lack of neutrality and, in the ECOWAS
case, the militarisation of existing regional conflicts and cleavages (Belmakhi, 2005). In other
words, regional (or sub-regional) actors are liable to be both too close to the issues and too
interested in the outcomes. International intervention was ultimately required to break the
deadlock.
Despite the fact that many studies have been conducted in areas pertaining ECOWAS roles
in regional development but little have been done on the contributory roles of Nigeria in
developing the regional organisation as expected. However, an array of articles and research can
be found on the influence of ECOWAS on regional security. Most of these discourses and
researches (Adebayo 2007; Oche, 1999; Ate and Akinterinwa, 1992) usually focus on the roles
of Nigeria to ECOWAS as a regional organization. Hence, little is still known and understood
about the determinants of ECOWAS structure as a regional organisation and its development to
West Africa and Africa at large. This research therefore seeks to focus on the roles and
contribution of Nigeria in the development of regional organisations in Africa,with ECOWAS as
a case study
1.3 Objectives of the study
These are the objectives of the study;
What are the roles Nigeria played in the formation of ECOWAS?
What are the challenges Nigeria faced in the development of ECOWAS?
What are the contributions of Nigeria in the development of ECOWAS and what are the ways it
is using to solve the challenges being face?
1.4 Objectives of the Study
The general objective of this study is to examine the roles and contribution of Nigeria in
the development of regional development with focus on Economic Community of West Africa
States The specific objectives are to:
Assess the roles Nigeria played in the establishment of ECOWAS.
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Examine the contributions of Nigeria to the development of ECOWAS since its formation.
Analyse the challenges faced by Nigeria in maintaining and fostering the development of
ECOWAS.
1.5 Significance of Study
This study is significant in the following ways. The study will contribute to the existing
literature on the roles and contributions of Nigeria‘s development of ECOWAS in West Africa,
and help bring additional academic focus on economic cooperation of regional development.
More importantly, the study hopes that subsequent discussions on the subject of inquiry, will
yield focused attention by scholars of African politics, and stimulate further debate among social
science scholars and other political observers alike, about, not only Nigeria‘s peacekeeping roles,
but Nigeria‘s commitments and contributions to regional development of ECOWAS in the
western region and indeed, in the continent of Africa.
1.6 Scope of Study
This study focuses on the roles and contribution of Nigeria to the development of ECOWAS as
a regional organisation, since inception to date
1.7 Limitation of the Study
Limitations exist due to inability to gain access to first-hand information on different crisis
among the member states of ECOWAS on which Nigeria had played a key role. Also time
constraint would be another limitation due to this, and secondary data would be used to carry out
this research.
1.8 Research Methodology
Data for this study are to be collected mainly primary and secondary sources of data. In
using the descriptive approach, the study makes use of primary and secondary data generated
from diverse sources: (a) relevant empirical literature, consisting of published scholarly work,
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government documents and gazettes, and other documents alike, (b) a series of unstructured and
informal interviews with few Nigerian diplomats who were present and/or participated in
Nigeria/ECOWAS regional development and decision making phases.
This was necessary so as to be able to capture the entire domain of the study.
Consequently, both the primary and secondary sources of data collection were explored. Primary
source of data contained in-depth interview. The In-depth Interview (IDI) instrument enabled us
to elicit information on the problematic which the study seeks to unravel. It also focused on
interviews with some of those who participated in Nigeria/ECOWAS regional development and
decision making issues.
The data came from no other sources except the interviews. Generally, the data was useful
in addressing Nigeria‘s motivation and commitment to political stability and economic
sustainability in West Africa. The data would help tremendously in stating historical
backgrounds of Nigeria‘s geopolitical structure, her relationship with her immediate neighbors
and its contributions to the formation of ECOWAS as regional organisation. Also, in this study,
most of the documents were analyzed such as magazine, internet articles, and scholarly literature.
Information from published scholarly work centers on Nigeria‘s foreign policy as it relates to
Africa but particularly to the West African region. In addition, documents dealing with
ECOWAS affairs were evaluated as well, since the ECOWAS organization and development
remains a large part of Nigeria‘s foreign policy preoccupation.
1.8 Organization of the Study
This study comprises five chapters. Chapter one gives an overview of the study, discussing
the statement of the problem and objectives as well as the significance of the study. Chapter two
contains the literature review and theoretical framework. It looks at the concept of regional
development, an overview of ECOWAS as a regional organisation and concept of regional
security. Also, the system theory and Inter Agency Framework for Conflict Analysis formed the
theoretical bases for this study. The issues related to roles and contributions of Nigeria to
ECOWAS in its development as a regional organisationis discussed in Chapter Three. Thus,
Chapter Four is the analysis of data, presentation and interpretation of results. Chapter five
extracts the study findings, conclusion and recommendations.