Military-led Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger exit ECOWAS amid sanction dispute: summary

What we know

• Three military-ruled West African nations Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso in a joint statement on national state channels on January 28 announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) effective immediately.
• The three nations claimed that the regional bloc was enforcing "illegal, illegitimate, inhumane, and irresponsible sanctions" while failing to assist them in their battle against "terrorism and insecurity."
• In response, ECOWAS stated that it has not yet received a formal notification of the withdrawal.
• The ECOWAS regional bloc imposed heavy sanctions on the military-led states in a bid to pressure the military leaders to revert to democratic governance following the successful coup plots in the three nations.
• ECOWAS at its recent summit on December 10, 2023, in Abuja, made public its intentions to re-engage the military-led West African states pending a transition to democratic governance.
• The bloc had set up a committee of heads of state from Togo, Sierra Leone and Benin to engage Niger’s military ruler General Abdourahmane Tchiani to come to terms with the transition to constitutional order following his visit to Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé on December 8, 2023.
• A precise timeline for a return to constitutional governance has not been provided by the military leadership since the coups, despite sanctions, talks, and threats of military involvement.
• Mali's transitional government led by Colonel Assimi Goïta has postponed holding elections on multiple occasions to return to constitutional rule after repeated assurances. The most recent one was that on February 4, 2024, there would be presidential elections. This date was postponed indefinitely, in September 2023.
• The military takeovers happened in Mali in 2020 and 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023.

What they said

The military leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, in a joint press release that was signed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on January 28, 2024, said, “ECOWAS, under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its member states and its populations whose happiness it is supposed to ensure… The organization did not assist our States in the framework of our existential fight against terrorism and worse insecurity when our States decided to take their destiny into their own hands, it imposed irrational and unacceptable illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible sanctions.” The ECOWAS regional bloc in response to the withdrawal also said in a press statement, “The ECOWAS Commission is yet to receive any direct formal notification from the three Member States about their intention to withdraw from the Community. The ECOWAS Commission, as directed by the Authority of Heads of State and Government, has been working assiduously with these countries for the restoration of constitutional order. Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali remain important members of the Community and the Authority remains committed to finding a negotiated solution to the political impasse. The ECOWAS Commission remains seized with the development and shall make further pronouncements as the situation evolves.”