Post: Sonko and Faye approach passengers for a land train (commentary)

Ouagadougou: Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko wants to persuade the Confederation of Sahel States to return to ECOWAS. He went to Bamako this Tuesday, August 13, 2024, to convince Prime Minister Choguel Maïga and President Assimi Goïta to forget the sanctions imposed on their country to return to this sub-regional institution.Before him, its president Diomaye Faye also went to Bamako then to Ouagadougou, on May 30, 2024, for the same cause. What if Ousmane Sonko and Diomaye Faye, the new Senegalese leaders announced as actors of the rupture, first took care of the realization of the single ECOWAS currency and the necessary reforms that they desired for this institution? West African populations need proof that ECOWAS is still viable and useful and that its rudder is in the hands of our heads of state.It should be remembered that the single ECOWAS currency should see the light of day in 2004 through an accelerated process of monetary integration. 20 years later, many missed appointments but still no single currency and tomorrow is not yesterday.The questions of economic integration and monetary sovereignty raised in 1987 within the framework of the monetary cooperation program are no longer part of the concerns of this institution which appears more and more under the guise of a specialized organization for citizen monitoring and the certification of democratic processes in West Africa. Did she not send electoral observers during the presidential consultations in 2020 in Togo (February 22), Guinea (October 18), Ivory Coast (October 31), Burkina Faso (November 22), in Ghana (December 7) and Niger (December 27)? And during this time, at the same time, terrorism paralyzed the Sahel without a muscular reaction from ECOWAS against terrorist groups and their supporters.Rather than negotiating the return of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to ECOWAS, Senegalese leaders should be able to put their positive energy into putting this institution back on track so that it becomes reliable and useful to the people aga in.There will be no shortage of construction sites. In addition to the texts to be reviewed to bring them up to date on the original objectives and the real challenges of West Africa, the people will undoubtedly like to see that the capital of the different ports of the community space are open to citizens and West African states so that there is never a blockage of goods leaving for a country, for whatever reason. We could also think about carrying out projects of sub-regional interest by mobilizing resources from ECOWAS citizens in order to realize common dreams. In any case, important structuring projects, rails for example, are sleeping in the drawers and are waiting for leaders to be implemented.And then, we wonder how the withdrawal of the AES countries from ECOWAS can harm the functioning of this institution which still has 12 members, or double the members of the Community of Central African States (CEMAC). , 6 States). Especially since those absent are often presented as small thumbs compared to the giants Nigeria-Ghana on the English-speaking side, Ivory Coast-Senegal on the French-speaking side, the locomotives of the region.It should also be remembered that Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali still remain suspended from ECOWAS. If Sonko and Faye are fighting for a shared good, and there is no reason to doubt them, they must at least know that Gaullist and sovereignist France left the integrated military organization of NATO in 1966 France rejoined NATO's unified command in 2009, without anyone having approached it. While Sweden has just broken its historic neutrality to put itself under the protection of NATO.The judicious approach of the new Senegalese leaders should therefore be to launch the machine, to remove doubts about ECOWAS now seen as an instrument in the hands of the imperialist since its good actions are summed up in terms of unfair and terrible sanctions against its cleanmembers. Any other bet is lost in advance.Mouor Aimé KAMBIRESource: Burkina Information Agency