The document discusses ECOWAS' role in recent political events in West Africa, including coups in Mali and Guinea-Bissau and elections in Senegal. It notes that ECOWAS deployed election observers and contributed to successful elections in Senegal. It also discusses ECOWAS' challenges in responding to the coup in Mali and deepening instability in the Sahel region, as well as generally encouraging signs of ECOWAS and the AU working to resolve crises and entrench democracy, though vigilance is still needed. It concludes by joking that ECOWAS has experience responding to coups and hopes it will eventually earn a "problem-solver" t-shirt for

1. “The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
ECOWAS has been there; done that; gotten the Tshirt for the coups. It's getting to work!
By E.K.Bensah Jr
Barely had the dust settled on the elections in Guinea-Bissau when West Africans woke up not to worldwide celebration of World Water Day, but a search for incumbent Malian president Amadou Toumani
Toure who had escaped from the Presidential palace.
Although I believe, as I averred in my last piece, that ECOWAS has a “mission”--and indeed responsibility
—to protect West African citizens from criminals, and attendant cross-border crime, there is no
gainsaying ECOWAS' latest diplomatic headache includes finding and enforcing peace in coup-torn Mali;
restoring (a semblance of) democracy in lusophone Guinea-Bissau—and all against a backdrop of more
sanguine news that ECOWAS is deepening ties with China.
Even before Ghana's Business&Financial Times newspaper started reminding us about an ECOWASChina dalliance that would be manifested through a forum, we knew this was not the first-ever meeting,
and that there had already been one held in 2008 in China when Dr.Chambas—the incumbent secretarygeneral of the Brussels-based ACP Group—was ECOWAS Commission president. That meeting saw over
1000 participants from the sub-region, including 200 private-sector operators and 150 government
officials. We can already speculate from this that the interest by Africa for China to be more involved on
the continent and sub-region had been percolating in the minds of policy-makers. As to whether this
interest was accompanied by a plan is less clear, but what we do know with this ECOWAS-China Forum is
that there will indisputably be a clear and present opportunity for China in the sub-region.
This will manifest itself through key projects of infrastructural development—examples include roads;
railways; housing; construction and transportation. Others include health care; mining; agriculture;
power; pharmaceuticals; and ICT. Ghana's vice-president John Mahama explained that the forum will
seek to maximise inflows of foreign direct investment from China to ECOWAS countries, and attract
long-term concessionary funds for developing infrastructure.
Senegal says goodbye to Wade
As Senegal voters saw Wade out, making way for newly-elected President Macky Sall, social networking
sites were understandably congratulating the Senegalese people, forgetting that ECOWAS—as the
player in the sub-region—had more than 100 election observers, including an envoy in Obasanjo who all
had contributed to the outcome. Macky Sall himself congratulated the international and national
observers 'for their contribution to successful elections.' While it may be too soon to congratulate the
ECOWAS and AU elements, it is arguable that the success of the elections is in no small part due to our
sub-regional and continental actors.
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2. Sahel fatigue? Mali coup!
I have no doubt that even with the crisis in the Sahel, there might regrettably be a “Sahel crisis” fatigue,
and that the good news from Senegal might have been overshadowed by it. Having written two pieces
for this column on Mali and the crisis already, I can fully understand why people might be apathetic to
the whole apparent chaos in the sub-region.
Truth be told, the threat of hunger in the Sahel is real—as UN agencies would testify. No less than the
UNDP administrator Helen Clarke was involved in a live twitter conversation some three weeks ago in
which she engaged the twitter audience to inform them what the UNDP and other UN agencies plan to
do to help the hungry in the Sahel. ECOWAS around the same time donated one million dollars towards
resolution of the crisis.
While the Sahel crisis has gone fairly under-reported by the West African media, it has ramified into
unpredictable outcomes, such as terrorism in Northern Mali, including the coup in Mali proper, which
genesis is tied to the Sahel crisis. Or at least, so the mutinous soldier would let us believe, claiming their
president ATT had done little to stem the crisis in Northern Mali, so they were taking over to stop the
terrorism in that part of the country, which is, in fact, contributing to the Sahel crisis. In short, it is a
quagmire, which ECOWAS needs to really sink its teeth into to ensure they have well and truly nipped in
the bud.
Guinea-Bissau comes of age?
Observers of the elections in Guinea-Bissau may recall how the Western press—and indeed much of the
African media—had been describing this West African country as a “narco-state” in the run-up to its
elections. ECOWAS observers went in—as per the provisions of ECOWAS's protocols, and elections have
gone smoothly over-all. I believe one can tick this off as another election gone down well, after Senegal.
ECOWAS deployed 80 observers, led by former President of Niger's Transitional Government Salou
Djibo, for the elections, which followed the death in January of President Malam Bacai Sanha after a
long illness
In conclusion, it might be too early to speculate that continental and sub-regional conflict management
has come of age, given what happened last year in 2011 in Cote d'ivoire and Libya, but I believe the signs
are very encouraging. ECOWAS and the AU cannot afford to be complacent in the wake of eventual
coups, given how a relatively stable country like Mali has found itself in a state of flux and confusion.
There's no gainsaying that vigilance by Ecowas community citizens are indispensable, but even more so,
in my view, is vigilance of what ECOWAS and AU are doing to entrench democratic dispensations. As I
write, ECOWAS is having an emergency summit in Cote d'Ivoire to resolve the crisis—and I have no
doubt they will eventually put paid to the Mali question. When Western observers last week started
tweeting and facebooking that the AU had suspended Mali, my eyes glazed over. This is nothing new; as
the AU did so to Niger when it was involved in a coup in 2008. It's so standard practice it should no
longer be news to Africans. I joked last week that on Mali, ECOWAS has been there; and done that.

3. I look forward to the day when it gets the T-shirt – stating it's a problem-solver on coups in the ECOWAS
sub-region!
In 2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd Generation—an NGO that
promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the role of ECOWAS
and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel owns "Critiquing Regionalism"
(http://critiquing-regionalism.org ). Established in 2004 as an initiative to respond to the dearth of
knowledge on global regional integration initiatives worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional
integration initiatives on MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him
on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: +233-268.687.653.
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