From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Dr Sam Amadi, has said that the country stands to lose more than every other nation from a weakened Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Agency (NERC), spoke at a press conference organised by the Abuja School in conjunction with the Save Democracy Group West Africa in Abuja on Tuesday,
Amadi raised concerns over the recent coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger Republic and their exit from ECOWAS, as well as the postponement of the presidential election in Senegal.
He noted that poverty and underdevelopment were the leading causes of democracy’s failure in West Africa, and advised the countries to immediately look for ways of addressing the issues to prevent the region from diving deeper into anarchy.
Amadi also disclosed that the organisations would be setting up a West African Democracy Observatory with the aim of pinpointing the problems and generating policy ideas that could help resolve them.
He said: “For us, the Abuja school and Save Democracy Group West Africa consider the travail of the democracy group in West Africa as serious because of three factors; the West African sub-region is probably the poorest part of the world. Some of the poorest countries in the world, you will see some of them coming from West Africa.
“Secondly, it is one of the terrorised, fragile states. If you look at the Sahel, which is where some of these countries are, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso. If you look at the Gulf of Guinea, it is also troubled – ISWAP, Boko Haram. It is really a fragile region.
“If you factor in the high poverty rate, and underdevelopment as seen in the GDP of West African states, they are very depressed.
“It means the failure of democracy in West Africa is the failure of development, human wealth. We are worried as a school, and this is not to spite the Nigerian government, this is a serious challenge to the sustainability of livelihood in West Africa.
“The geopolitics of West Africa requires more democratisation and so the Abuja School wants to not just condemn this development, but seek first explanation as to why is democracy failing West Africa?
“So the school is committed to understanding what is going on, putting it into a framework, seeing the variable driving it and being able to offer ideas on what should be done to deepen democracy.
“And thus, strengthen the leadership of the ECOWAS because the Nigerian Government stands to benefit a lot from a stable ECOWAS and stands to lose more from a destabilised West African sub continent.”