A group under the aegis of Nigerian Working Group on Peace and Conflict Prevention (WGPCP) has urged the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to initiative new, urgent regional economic roadmap that will address misery, poverty, youth unemployment, the skyrocketing prices of food and essentials of life which threaten stability in one of the World’s poorest regional blocs.
Besides, WGPCP also urged ECOWAS to address human rights violations arising from detention of political dissidents, religious intolerance and terrorism by state and non-state actors.
The Working Group made the call on Wednesday, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Comrade Adewale Adeoye and General Secretary, Chief Digifa Werenipre, saying that it had expressed its concerns in a letter already written to the ECOWAS Chairman, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Executive Secretary of the sub-regional group, Mohammed Ibn Chambers.
Others that signed the statement are regional representatives of WGPCP are Prof. Lucky Akaruese, Dim Uche Okwukwu and Kudu Abubakar.
The group, while noting that ECOWAS member- states were plotting to invade Niger to install democracy, pointed out that the most important focal point was for the regional body to initiate a trans-national economic Blueprint that would bail the region out of misery, poverty, youth unemployment amid large-scale proliferation of illicit arms, factors which coup plotters continue to exploit.
“Addressing economic inequalities, youth unemployment and fighting corruption in an honest and decisive manner is a major antidote to military coups, far more critical than threats of invasion of countries seized by soldiers at gunpoint,” WGPCP demanded.
WGPCP said to achieve this goal, ECOWAS should call for an Economic Summit that would involve civil society and other international partners to tackle immediate challenges that may plunge the region into turmoil if not quickly addressed.
The group, while further noting that ECOWAS members had witnessed military take-over of power in three member states, with Gabon in nearby Central Africa struck by another military coup on Wednesday, declared that coups in any form was condemnable, adding that the people in West Africa should determine their future through fair, credible and transparent elections.
The Working Group, however, posited that preventing coups lay in good governance and placing the public interest at the front burner of government policies, just as it also demanded the release of all political detainees.
“We call on ECOWAS to call an emergency summit on regional cooperation that can lead to economic revival of member states. We want to see a new economic roadmap that will address basic needs of the sub-region like roads, food, agriculture, free trade and human security.
“ECOWAS should define its own framework of development that would lift the bloc from a state of stupor and citizen hopelessness,” it said.
Speaking further, the Working Group said sadly that West Africa Region, with its population of 418,544,337, had witnessed a situation whereby more than half of the citizens “are poor forcing the mainly vulnerable youth population to embark on desperation to survive, including going to Europe by trudging through the life threatening desert ruled by violent gangs before getting to the Atlantic Ocean which they swarm to cross over by all means necessary even at the risk of imminent death.”
According to WGPCP, while the three leading economy in West Africa are Nigeria, Ghana and Cape Verde, Nigeria being the leading country has continued to witness economic instability, growing unemployment, violence and rising inflation rate which may inevitably lead to greater crisis in the region.
“With GDP of some $477.38b, Nigeria is expected to provide leadership for the ECOWAS, but the country is facing serious economic decline.
“There are some 95.1m poor Nigerians. The World Bank estimates that the figure may hit over 100 million poor representing half of the population while 133 million are multidimensionally poor. This is dangerous for the political and economic stability of the entire West Africa sub-region,” the group lamented.
“West African leaders should feel guilty if not ashamed for pushing their citizens to the edge of suicidal methods of survival borne out of deprivation, exclusion, poverty and inequalities occasioned by inept leadership in most of West African States’, the group concluded.
The Working Group was established in 2016, following a string of national conferences in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones spearheaded by the Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER), with the support of the Ford Foundation, West Africa Regional Office.
The Working Group conducts research on conflict across Nigeria and provides warning signals where necessary.
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