Published on: 04/12/2022 – 04:25
The 62nd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will take place this Sunday, November 4th in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
With our special correspondent and our correspondent in Abuja, Serge Daniel and Moses Gomis
The Commission’s new President, Gambian Omar Alieu Touray, will be sworn in at this summit before a closed session during which several issues will be discussed.
First, ECOWAS mediators for Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, the three countries suspended after a coup d’état, will submit reports to the President Missions carried out in these three countries. “We must support these states suspended by the ECOWAS authorities, but we are not in favor of the military remaining in power,” comments an ECOWAS Commission official.
Guinea already has a 24-month transition in place, but it has yet to be determined when it will start or when it will have started. In Burkina Faso, the young captain Ibrahim Traoré arouses curiosity. With reference to Colonel Assimi Goita from Mali, we will talk about him in two acts: the one about the transition in his country and the one about the Ivorian soldiers who have been held in Bamako for more than four months.
Then the issues of the single currency in the sub-regional space and the fight against terrorism must also be mentioned by the participants. This last point may have to be decided by the heads of state. ECOWAS has had a counter-terrorism plan in the pipeline for a few years, but theAccra Initiative now exists. And some observers are urging us to choose a single strategy in the subregion rather than two.
Nocturnal Exchange
So this 62nd ECOWAS Summit already promises to get busy. And the presidents didn’t wait for the opening to meet. As of Saturday, the corridors of the hotel where the heads of state reside were full of exchanges and confabulations.
It is the sequel to the most requested Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara. She was notably visited by the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo. No official statement was made, but he came to greet his counterpart and take advice, we learned.
On another floor of the same hotel, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guinea, Dr. Morissanda Kouyaté to defend his country in the corridors of the summit, but also to reaffirm Guinea’s firm desire to work with the sub-regional organization for a smooth transition.
Inauguration of the new headquarters
A few hours before the summit, the Presidents will attend the inauguration of the West African organization’s new headquarters. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and ECOWAS titular President Umaro Sissoco Embalo will lead the delegation of heads of state and government at the laying of the foundation stone. This website is programmed to host the Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice.
And it is China that is handling all of the funding for this project, which is expected to cost $32 million, but whose final cost could double. It took ten years of exchanges between the two parties before an agreement was reached because ECOWAS took its time to negotiate certain clauses.
The construction is carried out with 100% Chinese equipment and without know-how transfer. On the other hand, ECOWAS has achieved that a certain percentage of workers and subcontractors must come from the West African region.
With this new building, ECOWAS aims to advance its regional policy from a real estate complex “with world-class design,” according to the West African organization’s commission.