As usual, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held a meeting yesterday to respond to the military takeover of the presidency in Burkina Faso, a member state.
It has become a convention that any time a member state suffers a military takeover, the community would meet, deliberate on related matters and issue communiqués.
The highlights of such communiqués include sanctions and orders to the military to either reinstate the deposed government or hand over power to a civilian body to run as an interim administration to put in place structures for fresh elections towards constitutional rule.
Even in cases where the military abide by such communiqués, they do not do so without any incidents.
For instance, on on August 18, 2020, soldiers ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta from power and a an interim government formed with Mr Bah N’daw emergng as the interim president and Moctar Ouane coming in as the Prime Minister, the coup leader, Colonel Assimi Goïta, becoming the interim Vice-President and two other senior military officers given ministerial positions.
On 24 May, 2021, President N’daw ignored Goita and carried out a cabinet reshuffle in which the military’s power over the defence and security ministries was not changed though but two leaders of the coup – Sadio Camara and Modibo Kone, who had been given the defence and security portfolios respectively, were replaced.
Addressing the Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority on the political situation in Burkina Faso in Accra yesterday, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said in less than two years, the West African sub-region had witnessed military takeovers in Mali, Guinea, and recently, Burkina Faso, and an abortive one in Guinea Bissau, which two latter events occurred just days ago.
The statement President made is milder at that when compared to the fact that for the last eight months, since May 24, last year, the sub-region has suffered three successful coups and a foiled one.
On May 24, there was a military takeover in Mali; a second in Guinea on September 5 and the third on January 24, 2022 in Burkina Faso, as well as a foiled one in Guinea Bissau on February 2, just two days ago.
It is interesting that ECOWAS has only asked for the immediate and unconditional release of ousted Burkinabe President Christian Kabore without any sanctions against the country.
This obviously is due to the fact that in the January 24 takeover, the military just removed the President without dissolving the civilian government.
It is regrettable that ECOWAS sanctions against junta takeovers have not stopped these unconstitutional acts in the sub-region that later enjoy legitimacy and which are becoming the norm in Francophone nations in recent times.
President Akufo-Addo says the resurgence of coups should be addressed before they destabilise the whole of the sub-region.
The Ghanaian Times agrees that the coup resurgence must be addressed properly, not with threats, sanctions and political actions but a new paradigm must be followed.
The ECOWAS leadership must go into all the political, constitutional and socio-economic dynamics; peradventure, a solution can be found because the economic and other sanctions have failed to work.
