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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will soon reactivate a 260,000-strong rapid deployment counter-terrorism brigade with annual funding requirement of $25billion. The President of the Commission, Omar Touray, revealed this at the 2025 African Chiefs of Defence Staff Summit in Abuja, with the theme “Combating Contemporary Threats to Regional Peace and Security in Africa: The Role of Strategic Defence Collaboration.”
Touray, who was represented by ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, said the funds would be used to activate the brigade, provide logistics, and offer financial support to frontline states battling terrorism. “There is no gainsaying that West Africa, in particular, the Sahel sub-region, has emerged as the epicentre of global terrorism, with several analytical surveys indicating that the Sahel accounted for 51 per cent of global terrorism deaths in 2024 alone,” he stated.
The initiative came on the heels of rising security challenges across West Africa in recent times. The West African leaders believe that a regional approach to the war against terrorism will ensure security in the region. We believe that raising $2.5 billion annually will be enough to fight terrorism in West Africa. We laud the plan to reactivate the ECOWAS counter-terrorism force. It demonstrates the commitment of the ECOWAS leaders to ensuring that the region is free from terrorism and other heinous crimes. No doubt, the increasing wave of terrorism in West Africa cannot be handled by one country alone.
However, there is need for collaboration in tackling the growing menace. The regional body must ensure that all member states are adequately represented in the force. The Sahel countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger should be encouraged to embrace it because insecurity has affected economic development and trade in the region. Irrespective of political differences among the member states, the spate of insecurity in the region calls for a united effort and cooperation to crush the scourge. Therefore, all hands must be on deck to ensure the security of all the people in the region. In other words, the fight against terrorism in the sub-region requires a concerted effort for effective results.
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Unfortunately, kidnapping has become a lucrative business in the region as millions of dollars have been paid as ransom to terrorists for the release of kidnapped victims in the past five years. At times, the terrorists kill the victims after collecting the humongous ransom. Many countries in the sub-region have lost many citizens on account of unbridled kidnapping. In fact, it is difficult to aggregate the number of people killed by terrorists in the region. For instance, a recent UN report says that more than 6, 000 people lost their lives to terrorism every year in the last three years before 2025.
The UN described the Sahel as “ground zero” for one of the world’s most brutal crises, with terrorism deaths there constituting more than half of global fatalities. Violent attacks by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates in coastal West African countries increased dramatically, with a surge of over 250 per cent in the two years leading up to early 2025. Burkina Faso has experienced a staggering 68 per cent increase in terrorism deaths and leads the world in this metric. The new force proposed by the ECOWAS leadership will be adequately equipped to check terrorism in the region.
Let all the member states of ECOWAS be willing to adequately fund the force. At the same time, the reactivation of the force should not be made to face implementation fatigue. The lofty objectives of ECOWAS cannot be attained with so much insecurity in the sub-region. Overall, there is a need for West African countries to unite and present a common front against insecurity. The report that there are more than 1,000 terrorist groups across Africa is scary and should worry African leaders.
Beyond the joint effort by ECOWAS, regional blocs should build home-grown defence industries and technologies to combat rising insecurity in their domains. It is encouraging that ECOWAS leadership is working to operationalize its integrated maritime security strategy, with three regional maritime centres and an international coordinating hub in Abuja, and measures to counter transnational organised crime. A secure West African sub-region will benefit all the member states of ECOWAS. It will also enable trade to flourish in the region.
