By Kelechi Deca
In June, when ECOWAS marked its 50th anniversary, I staged what was essentially a one man media protest. I called out the sub regional bloc openly, loudly, and against my own professional interests for spending half a century foot dragging while other Regional Economic Communities, many modelled after ECOWAS, have surged ahead.
That outburst cost me patronage. But it felt necessary. It felt honest.
Because after 50 years, ECOWAS still cannot boast of a seamless highway from Lagos to Abidjan, not to mention an extension to Dakar. I have done the Lagos to Dakar road trip. I have driven all the way to Banjul. I can name every extortion point along the 1,300 kilometre corridor, some sections degenerating into near impassable terrain, especially across parts of Liberia, Guinea, and Senegal.
ECOWAS has failed to guarantee free, uninterrupted movement of people and goods. That failure has dragged the region backward.
Yet even in its imperfections, ECOWAS has laid a foundation, one that can still be strengthened if we take responsibility for building on it.
A few weeks ago, some of our business partners struggled to access Sierra Leonean visas due to communication gaps. But a single call to the Gambian Embassy in their country got them an emergency Gambian visa. With that, they landed in Sierra Leone with ease. That is one of ECOWAS’ quiet wins, cross border travel flexibility through visa reciprocity.
It is why a non ECOWAS citizen with a Ghanaian visa can enter Nigeria, just as a German visa opens access to Schengen states. It works. But it can work better.
We have been circling the same mountain for too long. Imagine a true superhighway from Lagos to Dakar, free of bottlenecks and harassment. Compare that dream with the chaos of Seme, Ilakondji, or Aflao, and then remember how effortlessly one can drive across COMESA countries, South Africa to Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, all the way to Kenya. Or my own trip across the trans Maghreb highway, from Egypt to Rabat, different worlds entirely.
Recently, at the West African Monetary Agency, we discussed the stalled single currency project. I offered a suggestion, technically simple but outside the orthodoxy. It stunned the room. Yet they are thinking about it now.
If UBA has subsidiaries in eight West African countries, why can’t regulatory agencies adjust their systems so that I can hold naira in my UBA account in Nigeria but withdraw and transact in cedis in Ghana, leones in Freetown, dalasi in Banjul, or CFA in Dakar?
Access Bank could adopt the same model.
It is not impossible. In fact, it is the lowest hanging fruit for reducing our dependence on the dollar and euro.
ECOWAS faces existential threats. These should be a wake up call, not an obituary.
This is within my pay grade. If they add a little pay and a little rank, I will say even more.
