West Africa is facing a critical moment, the president of ECOWAS, Omar Touray, told the regional bloc’s security council during a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.
Touray described the situation as a “state of emergency,” though it remains unclear whether this was intended as an official declaration or what formal measures it might trigger.
Pointing to a wave of coups, attempted coups, and growing security threats, he said that “events of the last few weeks have shown the imperative of serious introspection on the future of our democracy and the urgent need to invest in the security of our community.”
Observers say Touray’s remarks may reflect an effort to rebuild ECOWAS’s authority after the bloc backed down from its threatened intervention following the 2023 Niger coup.
“ECOWAS is concerned that coups will become the new mainstream in West Africa,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. “Now they try to show they mean business.”
In a related development, Nigeria’s Senate on Tuesday approved President Bola Tinubu’s request to deploy troops to Benin at the invitation of its government. Nigerian forces had already conducted airstrikes on armored vehicles during Sunday’s attempted coup attempt there, also at the Beninese government’s request.
