What’s next as key Sahel states leave ECOWAS?

Earlier this month, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso signed a treaty that marked their departure from the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), setting them on the path to form their own joint confederation: the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

“Our people have turned their backs irrevocably on ECOWAS,” said Nigerian military ruler Abdourahamane Tchiani at AES’s first press conference in Niamey. “It’s now up to us to create the Alliance of Sahel States confederation. It’s an alternative to any artificial regional grouping by building a sovereign community of peoples,” he underscored.

The leaders of all three junta-led states attended the summit in military fatigue, which had been the main point of contention with ECOWAS, which had suspended the three members earlier for the lack of democratic rule.

In July 2023, Tchinai had overthrown the democratically-elected President Mohamed Bazoum in a coup d'état. This came less than a year after Ibrahim Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso; and Assimi Goïta took over leadership in Mali in 2021, in the country’s third military takeover since 2012.

“From now on, we say, whether you're from Mali, Niger or Burkina, we have the same destiny. We're going in together,” said Burkinabè Prime Minister Appolinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela at the summit. “It is up to us to take control of our destiny,” he added.

All three postcolonial states have had a long history of military takeovers since their independence from the brutal and colonial French rule in 1960.

AES’s stated objective is mutual cooperation to enhance regional security by uniting against internal threats and combating foreign interference, namely from France and the United States. “Africa is a continent that has suffered and continues to suffer due to imperialists,” said President Traore of Burkina Faso at the summit. “For them, Africans belong to them, our land belongs to them. They’ve never been able to change their ways.”

In December 2022, the last French troops deployed to combat religious extremists were made to leave Niger, following the July coup, “echoing juntas in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Mali who severed long-standing security ties with France after coups in 2020-2022,” stated a report in Reuters. “Until the coup, Niger had remained a key security partner of France and the United States, which used it as a base to help in the regional fight with groups linked to Al Qaeda and Daesh that have killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel and beyond,” the report elaborated.

Russia made inroads into the region during this time, worrying Western observers. According to Paul Stronski, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Moscow is inserting itself in countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso and is taking advantage of Western policy missteps, growing anti-European sentiment, and longstanding failures of international and local actors to address the root causes of regional instability.”

Some view the decision to isolate from the other ECOWAS nations as worrying to the region’s shared goal of combating terrorism, which has plagued the region for years. In 2024 alone, hundreds of people were killed in violent terrorist attacks.

The UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel Leonardo Santos Simão also warned that the three nations would be “relinquishing key benefits” granted to ECOWAS members and the threat to democratic values. Military rule has always “postponed the return to constitutional rule and sparked fear of prolonged uncertainty,” he said.

In a meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, ECOWAS Commission Chief Omar Alieu Touray said that the three not only risked "political isolation", but could lose over $500 million in economic investment. “Considering these benefits, it is evident that disintegration will not only disrupt the freedom of movement and settlement of people, but it will also worsen insecurity in the region,” he said.