66th ECOWAS Summit in Abuja
The 66th summit of the heads of state and government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) took place in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Sunday. Led by Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who currently holds the chairmanship of ECOWAS, the bloc discussed pressing regional issues such as political stability, security and economic cooperation. The introduction of the common ECOWAS currency ECO was a key topic. The criteria drawn up by a high-level committee for the selection of member states wishing to join the monetary union were adopted. The costs and financing modalities for the necessary reforms and institutions for the introduction of the ECO were also approved at the summit. The currency is scheduled to be introduced in 2027.
The heads of state and government also approved the intergovernmental agreement on the African-Atlantic gas pipeline project, which is to connect Nigeria with Morocco and run through a total of 13 West African states. The ECOWAS Commission is now to sign the final version of the intergovernmental agreement by June 2025 at the latest and work towards accelerating the realisation of the project. The Commission was also tasked with setting up a Regional Observatory on Free Movement, Trade and Transport to identify and overcome obstacles to implementation. Another focus was on peace, security and political stability in the region, which has seen a rise in armed terrorist groups and violent extremism in recent years. The threat of misinformation and disinformation was also identified as a growing risk. To counter this, the Commission is to press ahead with the implementation of the current action plan in the coming year, with particular priority being given to the activation of a counter-terrorism force. At the same time, ECOWAS President Omar Touray was urged to immediately convene a meeting of finance and defence ministers to clarify the modalities for the provision of funds for the counter-terrorism force.
In addition, the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute crimes committed under Yahya Jammeh’s military dictatorship in The Gambia was decided on Sunday. Jammeh’s rule, which lasted from 1996 to 2017, was characterised by arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and sexual abuse. The decision to establish the tribunal comes more than seven years after the establishment of The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC). Accordingly, although the tribunal has been widely welcomed, there has also been much criticism of the many years of inaction by ECOWAS.
Meanwhile, media coverage centered on the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from ECOWAS — a move announced nearly a year ago by the military juntas leading these countries (Press review CW 5/2024: Cracks and bridges). The withdrawal will take effect in January 2025 after a one-year period. Despite mediation attempts by ECOWAS under the leadership of Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his Togolese counterpart Faure Gnassingbé, the regional bloc was unable to persuade the three states to remain in the community. After the summit, Commission President Touray announced a timetable for the withdrawal, which will enter into force on 29 January 2025 in accordance with Article 91 of the revised ECOWAS Treaty of 1993 and provides for a six-month transition period until 29 July 2025. During this period, the doors of ECOWAS will remain open to the three Sahel states and mediation efforts will continue. However, a return of the three states, which stayed away from the summit on Sunday and have founded their own regional organisation, the Alliance des États du Sahel (AES), is considered unlikely. It therefore still needs to be clarified what the withdrawal of the three states means for the free movement of people and goods, which applies within the ECOWAS area and brings enormous economic benefits. On Saturday, the AES states announced in a joint declaration on the sidelines of their own summit that citizens of ECOWAS states will continue to be able to enter the country without a visa. ECOWAS intends to discuss this in the second quarter.
Developments between the AES and ECOWAS also played an important role during Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s visit to Nigeria last week. In his meetings with Tinubu and Touray, Steinmeier emphasised the importance of the AES states remaining in the Economic Community of West African States for the peace and economic prosperity of the region and called on Tinubu to use his diplomatic influence to keep the commission and the region together. In recent months, the AES has increasingly turned to Russia as a partner, while relations with the former colonial power France are considered difficult. The transition period announced for the three states is now seen by Germany as an opportunity to curb Russia’s growing influence in the region.
Peace talks between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda break down
The meeting between Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame planned for last Sunday in Angola was cancelled at short notice. It would have been the first face-to-face meeting between the two presidents in 18 months and was part of the negotiations led by Angola’s President João Lourenço to resolve the tensions between the two neighbouring countries over the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Lourenço had even announced the signing of a provisional peace agreement between the DRC and Rwanda as the goal of the talks.
The Congolese presidency announced that the current meeting had not materialised because the Rwandan side had insisted on direct negotiations with the M23 rebel group, whose uprising triggered the current conflict three years ago, as a condition for signing a peace agreement. The DRC rejects this, as such a dialogue would legitimize the actions of the M23. The Rwandan Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, stated that there was no basis for signing an agreement without a corresponding commitment. Both the DRC and the United Nations (UN) accuse Rwanda of supporting and partially controlling the rebels. In addition, Rwanda is said to have stationed around 4,000 soldiers in the east of the DRC. Rwanda rejects these accusations and insists that it has only taken steps in self-defence against the DRC-backed Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR).
The cancellation of the meeting is seen as a not insignificant, albeit not surprising setback in Lourenço’s diplomatic efforts as part of the so-called Luanda Process, according to experts. In August, the Angolan president, who was appointed mediator by the African Union (AU), brokered a fragile ceasefire between the two nations. Despite this, fighting continued in the east of the DRC, with clashes intensifying again, particularly since the end of October. Rwandan and Congolese experts had also met in Luanda at the end of October to develop a roadmap to a possible peace, which envisaged both an end to the DRC’s support for the FDLR and Rwanda’s withdrawal from the conflict. The plan was only accepted by Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe at the end of November and was intended to form the basis for talks between the two heads of state.
Conflicts in the east of the DRC, particularly in the province of North Kivu, and the attempt to generate stability have been recurring themes in the country for decades (press review CW 45/2023: In the name of peace?), not just since the resumption of fighting with the M23 three years ago, but have received little international attention. Around seven million people are now considered as internally displaced persons. It was only in this spring that the UN peacekeeping mission Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (MONUSCO) withdrew from initial parts of the country after its effectiveness in securing the population and stabilising the region was continuously questioned by the Congolese government (press review CW 18/2024: Demonstration of power). The UN is now complaining that Rwanda’s military operations are hindering MONUSCO’s work in North Kivu.
Experts repeatedly point to the underlying causes of the conflict, which are seen in particular in the competition for the high deposits of mineral raw materials. The so-called 3T minerals, which are used specifically in the processing of computers and mobile phones, are considered to be particularly important. Some of the mines where these minerals are extracted are under the control of armed groups, some of which are supported by both the Congolese army and the Rwandan side. Last Tuesday, the DRC filed a criminal complaint against several Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium. They are accused of using such conflict minerals in their supply chains. According to the indictment, the minerals are smuggled abroad via Rwanda and resold from there. Rwanda denies the allegations of profiting from such trade. Apple also denies the allegations and stated in a statement that it has not purchased any raw materials from the DRC or Rwanda since the beginning of the year and that the majority of these minerals are recycled in its production.
In other news
The annual Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) Awards took place on Monday evening in Marrakech, Morocco. Nigerian striker Ademola Lookman was crowned African Footballer of the Year, while the title of African Female Footballer of the Year went to 24-year-old forward Barbra Banda from Zambia. Lookman had previously completed a successful season with Italian club Atalanta and the Nigerian national team, the Super Eagles. He helped the national team reach the final of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations with three goals and is the second Nigerian in a row and sixth overall to win the African Footballer of the Year award after Victor Osimhen (2023). Banda, on the other hand, is the first Zambian female footballer ever to be recognised as the continent’s best player. She played for the Orlando Pride in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the United States last season, where she was recognised as one of the key players. She scored the decisive goal in the NWSL championship final, helping her team to a historic domestic double, winning the championship in the playoffs and the NWSL Shield as the best team at the end of the regular season. The award for the national team of the year went to the women’s national team of Nigeria and the men’s national team of Côte d’Ivoire. The captain of the South African national team, Ronwen Williams, was also honoured with two awards. He received both the Goalkeeper of the Year Award, and the Interclub Player of the Year Award for men. In the women’s category, the award for Goalkeeper of the Year went to Chiamaka Nnadozie from Nigeria.