By Sizo Nkala
At a meeting a few weeks ago in Abuja, Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) defence chiefs and finance ministers, proposed a plan to deploy a 5 000-member regional counterterrorism force to combat the scourge of terrorist insurgency that has long been a cause for concern in West Africa.
The proposed plan would cost US$2.6 billion (about R46 billion) annually which is over five times the annual budget of the entire organisation. The meeting also presented an alternative plan, which would have a smaller force of 1 650 members at a yearly cost of US$481 million.
The new developments emanate from a resolution made by the extraordinary summit of the Ecowas authority of heads of state and government in February 2024, which directed the Ecowas Commission to convene a meeting of the ministers of finance and defence to deliberate on strategies of financing and equipping the counter-terrorism force.
With most of the countries in the region facing economic problems one wonders where the money to fund the counterterrorism force will come from. The meeting did not produce any concrete plans or details as to how the proposed deployments will be funded.
If Ecowas’ resources fall short, the body will be forced to look outside of its borders to countries like China, the United States, the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) for funding. Depending on external actors for funding compromises the ownership and the agenda of programmes meant to address problems affecting African countries.
Nonetheless, this initiative is much needed. The West African region is one of the worst affected by terrorism in the world. As per the Global Terrorism Index 2024 report, of the 10 countries with the highest number of terrorist incidents in the world, four are from West Africa (Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger).
The region is home to several terrorist groups including Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Boko Haram, Islamic State in West Africa (ISIS-WA) and ISIS-Sahel among others, which have transnational operations across the region.
In the first six months of 2023, the West African region recorded a staggering 1 800 terrorist attacks in various countries resulting in over 4 500 deaths. Recently the region has witnessed military coups taking place in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Guinea which further complicated the regional security architecture, and undermined Ecowas’ ability to address transnational terrorism.
Indeed, one of the common grievances that motivated the ouster of constitutionally elected governments in these countries was their failure to address terrorism which had seen the security situation deteriorating.
The ruling military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced their decision to withdraw their respective memberships in Ecowas accusing the regional body of imposing illegal sanctions on them and being infiltrated and influenced by external forces.
Last September, the three countries formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – a security pact through which they committed to jointly deal with terrorism, and pledged collective defence should any of the countries come under external or internal attack. The military coups also led to the disbandment of the G5 Sahel, which comprised Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Chad and Mauritania and was formed to co-operate on matters of regional security.
Moreover, all the three countries expelled French troops who were stationed in their countries to help their militaries fight terrorism. They justified the expulsion of the French troops arguing that their presence had not deterred or contained terrorist attacks. As these countries are some of the most affected by terrorist attacks, Ecowas will need their co-operation if it is to effectively address terrorism.
On their own, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger boasting a combined economic output of less that US$60 billion, do not have the required resources to tackle terrorism. The glaring lack of state capacity in the three countries could see them becoming terrorist havens used by the terrorist groups to launch attacks on neighbouring states.
Hence, for Ecowas’ proposed counterterrorism force to work, the organization needs to come up with an urgent political solution to get the military-ruled countries back to the regional fold. Without them, the counterterrorism force will suffer a still birth no matter how well-funded it may be. Therefore, more energy needs to be directed towards mending the broken relations between Ecowas member states.
* Dr Sizo Nkala is a Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Africa-China Studies.
** This article expresses the views of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media