FORMER Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has asked Nigeria to terminate its membership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should Morocco be admitted as a member of the ECOWAS.
According to Akinyemi, in a statement, the extension of ECOWAS membership to Morocco was in bad faith and an attempt to whittle down Nigeria’s status as a regional power.
Akinyemi, who said that ECOWAS could not unilaterally expand the boundary of West Africa to the Mediterranean, said such move was not logical, legal, moral or historical and was against acceptable international norms.
Morocco, a North African country had in February officially asked to join the ECOWAS as a full member, its request was informed by the need to “crown the strong political, human, historical, religious and economic ties at all levels with ECOWAS member countries.”
The ECOWAS had in principle approved Morocco’s membership application, though noted the implications of such membership still needed to be considered before Morocco could formally join.
“Nigeria has only one option. Let the West African Heads of State and Presidents drop this whole issue of expansion to the Mediterranean or Nigeria should serve notice that it would terminate its membership of ECOWAS.
“Having failed to find any rational benefit to ECOWAS by expanding membership to Morocco, I can only conclude that the move is motivated by bad faith driven by the desire to whittle down Nigeria’s influence in ECOWAS, and by extension in the world, as Nigerian status as a regional power is facilitated by its role in ECOWAS,” Akinyemi said.
Further noting that elective and appointive posts and resources are allocated by international institutions on regional basis, Akinyemi stated that admitting Morocco into ECOWAS meant that it would benefit from the Arab League quota as well as the West African quota.
He wondered whether similar countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Israel and Palestine were also eligible for membership in ECOWAS if Morocco was admitted.
The statement read in parts, “Firstly, the creation of ECOWAS was one of the most fundamental post-civil war strategic policies arising out of the lessons of the civil war which is that it is in the strategic interests of Nigeria to lock its West African neighbours into an area of co-prosperity and co-stability. Since then Nigeria’s security policies in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote Divoire and Gambia had been anchored on ECOWAS. When South Africa tried to be an interloper in Cote D’Ivoire, it was on the platform of ECOWAS that the South African attempt was seen off. That also explains why Nigeria bears a substantial cost of the ECOWAS.”
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