Odoo is a business management software suite developed in Belgium. But its advert billboard often reminds me of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s popular song with the same acronym.

*O. D. O. O,*  or Overtake Don Overtake Overtake, is the title of Fela’s 1989 album, which, like most of his revolutionary songs, did not spare political leaders in Africa for the hardships inflicted on the masses, while the ruling class basked in opulence.

The song’s chorus goes thus:

I get my money

Plan my plan finish

Start to go for market

Start to go for shopping

Before I reach market nko o?

Government show don enter

My plan don spoil o…

Overtake don overtake overtake!

The second stanza says:

When they want to call, eh

When they want to call, eh

When they want to call Nigerian government

Them give am name, “Federal Military Government”

For Libya dem give am name, “Liberation Council”

For Liberia dem give am name, “Redemption Council”

For Zaire (DR Congo) dem give am name, “Revolutionary Council”

Them get different different names

For different different governments

But the correct name for them

Na “soldier go, soldier come”

The next stanza adds:

Na so our lives for Africa dey roll

Since them say we get independence

The civilian government wey them dey

Na soldier dey protect them

When our lives roll small

He go go knock head for wall

When our lives roll small

He go go knock head for tree

When our lives roll small

He go go knock head for stone

When I see say our lives dey roll

Like one yeye ball

Wey one yeye wind

Dey blow from one yeye corner

I put my mouth for song:

“Kalakuta Show….

My first close encounter with Fela was at his Kalakuta Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos during the launch of *O. D. O. O*  in 1989. At that time, government-owned broadcasting entities were forbidden from playing Fela’s songs, and the ban probably still subsists.

However, as a correspondent with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), I was assigned by my Editor, Damian Obika (DD of blessed memory), to cover the launch. NAN is a government-owned wire service, but on this occasion, as journalists, we decided to push the boundaries of press freedom by publishing the story of Fela’s album launch and copiously quoting him calling for the release of 11 NEPA Senior Staff jailed over an anti-government strike.

The NAN story made headlines the following day, with other media outlets quoting the agency as the source, apparently expecting us to get into trouble. It was unusual for a government news agency to run such a “sensitive or controversial” story. But at NAN, we got away with it, and credit must go to the editorial management, which did not impose self-censorship.

In 1997, as the West Africa Bureau Chief of the Dakar-based Pan-African News Agency (PANPRESS), the editorial duty again fell on me to report on Fela’s passing in Lagos. I was in Monrovia, Liberia, to cover that country’s elections, which brought former warlord turned President Charles Taylor to power at the end of the first phase of Liberia’s civil wars, which killed an estimated 250,000 people.

Like his other iconic works, such as *Zombie, Water No Get Enemy, Sorrow, Tears and Blood, Shakara, Coffin for Head of State*  and *Expensive Shit,* Fela used his music to champion struggles against corruption, injustices, military rule, police brutality, colonialism/imperialism and the exploitation of African societies.

Born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti to a clergyman and an activist mother, Fela was, until his death in August 1997, aged 58, a rebel with a cause. His open confrontations with successive Nigerian governments and their agencies made him, arguably, the most arrested citizen during his lifetime. Charges against him ranged from murder to armed robbery and assault.

In 1984, Fela was arrested, put on trial, and sentenced to five years in prison for foreign currency smuggling under the military regime’s draconian decree that banned Nigerians from operating domiciliary bank accounts. He was released after 20 months.

Watching Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political ecosystem today, with the apparent decimation of political opposition, subdued civil society, and almost compliant media, Fela is sorely missed.

Variously described as an artist, philosopher, and political activist, Fela was brave and used his music as a platform for resistance, challenging, and speaking uncomfortable truths to power.

It was no surprise that on the 31st of January this year, before the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, Fela made history as the first African to receive the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which is reserved for artists who made outstanding contributions to the recording arts.

Felabration is an annual festival conceived by Fela’s family in 1998 to celebrate the life and legacy of the Nigerian music icon. But where is the spirit of Fela or that of fellow late activist-lawyer Gani Fawehinmi in other Nigerians today? Gani subjected most government policies, laws/decrees, and measures, especially the controversial ones, to legal tests, whether he won or lost.

Where are the Nigerians that fought General Sani Abacha through NADECO, Radio Kudirat, Guerrilla journalism, or those who organised the #Occupy Nigeria protests during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration after it raised the pump price of fuel?

Are Nigerians enjoying the conduct and performance of their elected representatives and the political class, who change political parties at will and live in opulence at the expense of the masses?

Are Nigerians satisfied with their country’s international image? Or, is Nigeria’s legendary novelist and poet Chinua Achebe vindicated in the title of his memoir There Was A Country, released in October 2012, six months before his death in March 2013?

Achebe wrote more than 20 works, including the iconic Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, translated into more than 50 languages. Some of the books are fiercely critical of politicians and the failure of leadership in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s once-vibrant organised labour and student union movement have capitulated. Except for the Chief Emeka Anyaoku-led Patriots, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Omoyele Sowore and a few other groups and individuals with alternative voices, Nigeria can be likened to a large Orchestra under a supreme conductor, who are oblivious of the feelings of their audience.

Fela, Achebe, and Gani have since gone to meet their Creator. What did other Nigerians learn from their activism for a better Nigeria?

Africa, the Black race, and the world at large are anxiously waiting for Africa’s most populous nation to wake up from slumber and provide much-anticipated leadership.

The January/February 2027 general election is an opportunity for transformational changes. But will the usual primordial politics of religion and ethnicity permit it? Political battles are fought more on social media, without concrete steps by stakeholders, including opposition parties, to improve citizen participation in the electoral process, given the dismal 2023 level, when less than 30 million voters cast their ballots in the presidential poll out of the 93.4 million registered voters in the country.

Despite constitutional provisions on checks and balances and the separation of powers, the executive and legislative arms of government at the federal and state levels are indistinguishable, while the courts are trying to outdo each other with outlandish decisions, thereby raising doubts about judicial independence and even enabling electoral outcomes to be settled in the courtroom rather than through the ballot box.

The weaponisation of poverty means that the people may have their say, but powerful and rich politicians will always have their way in Nigerian politics.

In addition to electoral malpractices such as vote-buying, voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, over-voting, ballot-snatching/stuffing and orchestrated violence to gain undue political advantage, it must be emphasised that any electoral process that produces less than 30% voter turnout will always raise questions about the legitimacy of its outcome.

Ejime Is A Global Affairs Analyst And Consultant On Peace & Security And Governance Communication

Recently, the Nigeria Union of Journalists did the seemingly unthinkable. The apex journalism body conferred its ‘Man of The Year Award’ to Mr Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi. Very normal, right? Until you realise that Mr Ajayi occupies a very important, strategic and sensitive position within the security architeture of Nigeria. His primary duty is ‘the protection and stability of the Nigerian state. He is the Director General of the Department of State Services otherwise known as the DSS and, despite expected noises from some quarters he is said to be deserving of the award for a novel approach in his engagements with the media – at least in the past 18 months.

The DSS has obviously evolved over the years, from the period of it’s dreaded precursor the Nigerian Security Organization, NSO, then under various military dictatorships whose natural inclinations for lawlessness and rights violation were legendary.

It was therefore almost a given that when the well-articulated democratic winds blew away the men in jackboots from power, it also helped to bring in a new dispensation of men and women who swore that they were children of democracy capable of ensuring that democracy’s bounteous blessings would be made manifest before Nigerians.

Part of the anticipated legacy of the new civilian dispensation was the urshering in of democracy’s imperatives which fruits and benefits were presumably the rule of law, respect for human rights, political transparency and accountability, a free press, etc etc.

Since then the quintet of Obasanjo, Yar A Adua, Jonathan, Buhari, and Tinubu have all traversed Nigeria’s power centre at the ‘Rock’ in Abuja. The results of their collective leadership for the past 27 years have been mixed. Of the quintet, Tinubu’s continuous journey as the president is still ongoing albeit with a hazy future, in view of the incoming election in 2027.

Though the general direction of the country has now certainly been clouded over by myriads of socio-economic negativities, especially the hydra-headed problem of insecurity, the country has also witnessed very modest gains. But it is clear that whatever gains that have been achieved would always pale into insignificance for as long as present socio-economic contradictions inflicted by the political class are not radically addressed through elitist consensus by these causative agents who are all beneficiaries of the struggle to enthrone democracy in the country.

That Nigeria is perhaps at its most challeged point post-civil war is not a matter of debate. You would think that after twenty-seven years of ‘unbroken democracy’ the longevity of democratic control of political power would provide the country the opportunity to sooth and repair the country’s religious, ethnic, and geo-political tensions. Sadly, the outcome of our democratic experiment since 1999 has been the excercabation of these faultlines by some within the political class for parochial purposes.

The consequences of these deficits and derelicts have resulted in the generation of social tensions exercabated further by increasing poverty and a general state of hopelessness. These scenarios constitute a combustible dynamic capable of threatening the free civic space and the power of the state. Confrontation then becomes inevitable between that sector of the public with the constitutional mandate to defend the civic space and protect our democracy – the media, and the body set up by law to ensure state stability, cohesion, and continuity – the DSS. Other security agencies have also at various times weighed in in ways detrimental to the free exercise of journalism in the country.

Data from press freedom watchdog organizations—including the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), highlights persistent press freedom violations in Nigeria, with security forces identified as primary perpetrators.

CJID’s Press Attack Tracker has recorded over 1,326 press freedom violations in Nigeria since 1986. In terms of fatalities, Nigeria leads West Africa in journalist deaths, accounting for 28 fatalities recorded between 1986 and 2026.

According to MRA and CJID reports, government security agencies account for more than 50%–60% of all documented attacks on journalists:

The police is reputed to be responsible for 48% of all violations.

That of the Department of State Services (DSS) stood at 7%–10% before now, while that of non-state actors stands at between 20%–25%. This involves targeted physical assaults during election coverage or investigative work.

Of all violations in the past 18 months, those by operatives of the Department of State Services seem to have come to a screeching halt except for a few abnormalities like that of Benue State recently when the DG of the service had to personally apologize to the NUJ for an infraction from his men. For the Director General of the Department of State Services to apologize to the Nigeria Union of Journalists for the conduct of his men in Nigeria is ‘insane,’ almost unbelievable, but very humbling and refreshing. He could have chosen otherwise, doubled down in support of his men and the heavens will not fall. He did the exact opposite.

But this change did not just happen one magical night. The dialogue between the Nigeria Union of Journalists and security agencies in the country has been ongoing for some time to ensure the protection of Journalists lawfully and constitutionally doing their duties of reporting the news, investigating and holding public office holders accountable. In all of these engagements either directly or indirectly, only one agency has been openly forthcoming. Only one agency has been willing to put its mouth where its money is. Only one agency has given a nationwide instruction to its men and women in the field to refrain from the harassment, intimidation, arrest of journalists anywhere in the country and siezure of the tools of their trade.

The man who made this possible, the DG of the DSS, Oluwatosin Ajayi Adeola went further to declare that no arrest of journalists anywhere in the country would be tolerated in any form and if there is any matter that requires the scrutiny of the DSS, the leadership of the NUJ would be informed. While the relationship with the DSS hopefully continues according to expectations the NUJ will continue to insist that a free and unhidered press is the gateway to the protection of our hard one democracy, national stability and cohesion – two elements at the core of the establishment of the Department of State Services.

So far, in the past one year and beyond, the DSS has kept to its promise. Arbitrary arrests and harassment of the people of the pen are no longer taking place.

For daring to do what his predecessors never even considered for a moment, methinks that Mr Oluwatosin Ajayi Adeola, the man in the Yellow House is indeed deserving of the award of ‘Man of The Year’ by the Nigeria Union of Journalists.

Achike Chude Writes From Abuja

Born in Monrovia and forced to flee Liberia’s civil war as a child, Miatta Fahnbulleh went from refugee to rising political star, earning the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s trust. Now, as energy secretary, she’s tasked with overhauling Britain’s energy system while easing pressure on household bills.

Born in Monrovia in 1979, Miatta Fahnbulleh was a child when violence and dictatorship engulfed Liberia, forcing her to flee with her parents and younger brother, Gamal.

Her father, Henry Boimah Fahnbulleh – Liberia’s former foreign minister who later served as national security adviser in the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration – had fallen out with the military regime of Samuel Doe that ruled the country, turning the family into targets as political tensions escalated.

Their search for safety first took them to Sierra Leone, her mother’s homeland, before the family eventually settled in Britain. Fahnbulleh arrived in the UK at the age of seven, and her family was granted asylum. It was the beginning of a remarkable journey, from a refugee child rebuilding her life in a new country to one of the Labour Party’s most influential policy voices.

Gamal would later carve out his own public career as a journalist and presenter with ITV Granada, while Miatta took a different path through economics, public policy and, eventually, Westminster.

Her own experience of migration has informed her belief that behind the arguments over immigration are real lives, families and communities rebuilding after upheaval.

“My family left Liberia during a time of deep political unrest,” she said in a newspaper column in 2025. “We fled for our lives because my father spoke out against a military regime that would drive the country into a brutal civil war.”

Britain became home, but Fahnbulleh never lost her connection to her West African roots. Growing up in London, she found a sense of belonging in Peckham, the vibrant south-east London community she would later represent in parliament, shaped by decades of African and Caribbean migration.

That personal connection would later become part of her political message: that migration is not simply about people arriving in a country, but about the communities they help build.

“The people who come here don’t just settle; they contribute,” she said. “They open shops, run market stalls, drive buses, clean offices, teach in schools, and keep the NHS going.”

Her own experience has shaped one of her strongest political convictions: that immigration should be understood as a source of renewal rather than division.

In an October 2022 interview with IMIX, a charity that challenges negative media narratives about people who migrate or seek safety in the UK, Fahnbulleh argued that the debate around immigration had become increasingly distorted.

“For me, immigration is a success story of every country,” she said. “It is sad, we have got to a point where immigration has been made toxic, but if you look at the facts, the benefits of immigration to any country, any society always outweigh the losses.”

Long before she entered Westminster, Fahnbulleh had already established herself as a leading voice on Labour’s policy landscape. Trained as an economist, she studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford before completing a doctorate in economic development at the London School of Economics. Her research focused on industrial policy in Ghana and Kenya, examining how governments can build economies and create opportunities.

Her career took her through some of Britain’s most influential policy institutions. She worked as head of cities in the Cabinet Office policy unit, became director of policy and research at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and later served as chief executive of the New Economics Foundation from 2017 to 2023.

At the British think-tank New Economics Foundation, she became known for advocating a more interventionist approach to economics, arguing that the government should play a stronger role in tackling inequality, supporting communities and driving the transition to a greener economy.

By the time she entered politics, she was already viewed as one of Labour’s emerging intellectual voices. The New Statesman named her among the most influential figures in progressive politics before she was elected, describing her as a natural candidate for Labour’s front bench.

Fahnbulleh’s rise through Westminster has been remarkably fast. She won the Peckham seat in Labour’s 2024 landslide victory, succeeding a constituency with a long Labour tradition.

Within days of entering parliament, she was appointed a junior minister at the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, giving her early experience in the department she would later lead.

Her political influence grew alongside her relationship with Andy Burnham, the former Labour leadership contender and now prime minister. Fahnbulleh became one of Burnham’s trusted policy voices, helping shape ideas around devolution, economic renewal, energy, and the cost-of-living crisis.

The fact that right-wingers are losing their minds over this appointment is evidence that Miatta Fahnbulleh is a good pick for this job.

Her position within Labour’s soft-left tradition has made her both influential and controversial. Supporters see her as a politician combining academic expertise with lived experience; critics have portrayed her as part of a broader ideological shift within the party.

British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan defended her appointment, saying on X: “The fact that right-wingers are losing their minds over this appointment is evidence that Miatta Fahnbulleh is a good pick for this job…”

Behind Fahnbulleh’s rise in British politics lies a family history shaped by public service, political struggle, and cultural influence. She was born into one of Liberia’s prominent families, where politics and social activism shaped generations.

Her grandfather, Henry Boimah Fahnbulleh Sr., was a prominent Liberian diplomat and intellectual whose career was marked by both influence and controversy. A former ambassador and senior government figure, he was convicted of treason in 1968 after prosecutors accused him of plotting against the government. It was alleged that he had criticised Liberia’s leadership in conversations with foreign ambassadors while serving as the country’s envoy to Kenya.

Fahnbulleh Sr. denied the charges, arguing that the case was politically motivated. After taking office in 1971, President William R. Tolbert Jr. pardoned him, recognising that he had been the victim of unjust accusations.

The family’s commitment to public life continued through Fahnbulleh’s grandmother, Mary Nema Brownell, a respected educator and peace activist who founded the Liberia Women Initiative and played a key role in mobilising women in Liberia’s peacebuilding efforts after the civil wars.

Fahnbulleh was named after her aunt, Miattah Fahnbulleh, one of Liberia’s most celebrated performers and widely known as the ‘doyenne diva’ of Liberian music.

Her aunt’s career crossed continents. She studied performing arts in the United States, performed at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre, worked with New York’s Negro Ensemble Company, and collaborated with South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela. She also represented Liberia at FESTAC ’77, the World Black Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria.

Later, she became a leading advocate for women and children, founding Obaa’s Girls Educational Outreach to support girls’ education and campaigning for greater representation of women in public life.

Sheriff Bojang Jnr Is A UK-Based Journalist. 

From the wholesale changes to its leadership architecture at the just-concluded mid-year Summit in Freetown, Sierra Leone, ECOWAS might have saddled Senegal and its leaders with more responsibilities than they can handle, with far-reaching implications, given the country’s current domestic political and economic challenges.

The regional leaders at their 69th Ordinary Summit appointed Gen. Birame Diop (rtd), Senegal’s former Minister of the Armed Forces and ex-Military Adviser for United Nations Peace Operations, as President of the ECOWAS Commission for the 2026-2030 term. Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected the new Chair of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government for a one-year term. The Commission coordinates the administrative activities of regional institutions and Specialized Agencies of the 51-year-old organisation, while the Chairman of the Authority provides policy guidance.

Diop replaces Gambia’s Dr Omar Alieu Touray, whose four-year term has been rather bumpy, with myriad leadership and governance challenges, It also saw the withdrawal in January 2005 of three Member States – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – which formed the Alliance of Sahel States, AES. The three are ruled by military juntas, and Guinea-Bissau, the fourth Member State under an army dictatorship, is suspended, leaving ECOWAS with 11 active Member States out of 15.

As if the responsibilities piled on Senegal were not enough, the Freetown Summit also appointed the country as the “facilitator” “…to support dialogue efforts towards an inclusive and smooth transition to constitutional order” in Guinea-Bissau.

In the former Portuguese colony, notorious for political instability, ex-President Umaro Sissoco Embaló orchestrated a self-coup in November 2025 to avoid an electoral defeat and is ‘remote-controlling’ the junta regime populated by his allies.

Faye succeeds Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio as ECOWAS Chairman. From all indications, Bio supports Embaló and had wanted another term as ECOWAS chair, but apparently, his performance and that of the Commission under Touray have raised several unanswered leadership questions.

Many had expected ECOWAS to insist on the release of the results of the 23 November 2025 elections, which were ready for announcement before the Embaló coup of 26 November. Instead, the Freetown Summit, “…takes note of the efforts underway in Guinea-Bissau to conclude the country’s political transition through a constitutional referendum slated for 30 August 2026 and the holding of general elections scheduled for 6 December 2026.”

Continuing, “The Authority calls on the transition authorities to ensure strict respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and judicial safeguards for all citizens of Guinea-Bissau, including those being prosecuted or accused in connection with events that took place under the previous regime. It further urges the authorities to unconditionally release all political figures still in detention, including the opposition PAIGC leader, as a goodwill gesture to engender a more favourable climate for inclusive engagements, reassure the opposition, and bolster the credibility of the transition process.”

This is despite the demand by Guinea-Bissau opposition parties, which have called ECOWAS’ attention to the fact that the junta’s transition programme “is a sham.” They also reminded ECOWAS leaders of their decision at the Abuja Summit on December 14, 2025, calling for a civilian-led transition “with a civilian President and a civilian Prime Minister (to head) an inclusive government that reflects the political spectrum of Guinean society, (and) responsible for carrying out the necessary structural reforms (to) organize free, fair, and transparent elections on a new date to be defined by consensus.”

By appointing Senegal as Chief Mediator of the Guinea-Bissau crisis, ECOWAS leaders can be accused of taking sides with the Bissau junta.  Faye has never hidden his support for Embaló. After the November 2025 coup, the Senegalese leader dispatched a plane to Bissau to evacuate Embaló, who only left Senegal unceremoniously due to opposition by then-Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, Faye’s former friend-turned political foe.

It is therefore unlikely that the Guinea-Bissau crisis would be resolved by Faye given his and, by extension, ECOWAS’ perceived bias. Apart from  Faye’s domestic political battle with Sonko, the added regional assignment can only complicate Faye’s role as ECOWAS Chairman with ramifications for future elections and political governance, not just in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal but the ECOWAS region at large.

ECOWAS has a Stabilization Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau (ESSMGB), which, along with a similar Mission in the Gambia, operates more like Palace guards for regime protection, due to their dubious mandates, which the Commission is trying to review. ECOWAS is owing the Missions’ troop-contributing countries more than US$120 million, and counting.

Analysts had expected a strong ECOWAS statement in Freetown barring Embaló and officials of the military junta from future elections in Guinea-Bissau in line with the 2001 regional Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. But having failed to apply its own rules in Guinea, where a coup leader has conducted an election and won, ECOWAS has put itself in a quandary.

The ECOWAS Authority “…congratulates H.E. Mamadi Doumbouya, on his election as the President of the Republic of Guinea,“ said the Communiqué of the Freetown Summit.

Togo and Benin are among member States that have violated the same 2001 Protocol by organising questionable elections in recent years without consequences.

Meanwhile, the Freetown Summit approved the appointment of new Commissioners to replace the Touray-led Commission and the leadership of other Community Institutions from 1 September 2026.

The new Commissioners are: Political Affairs, Peace and Security: Mrs Francess Piagie Alghali (Sierra Leone); Economic Affairs and Agriculture: Mr Dehpue Yenpea Zuo (Liberia); Internal Services: Dr Kalilou Sylla (Côte d’Ivoire); Infrastructure, Energy and Digitalisation: Mr Amin Amidu Suleiman (Ghana); and Human Development and Social Affairs: Prof. Nassirou Bako-Arifari (Benin). Nigeria was given additional time to name a candidate for the Commission’s Vice-President position.

The Director General, West African Health Organisation (WAHO) is Dr Palokinam T. Pitche (Togo); Director General, Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA): Mr Mam Cherno Jallow (The Gambia); while Auditor General for ECOWAS Institutions is Ms Carla Maria Borges Bettencourt (Cabo Verde).

The Authority also named five new judges for the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice from Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Liberia and the Gambia for 2026-2030, to replace those whose terms have ended.

A major economic decision by the Freetown Summit is the regional leaders’ “firm commitment to launch the ECO (regional currency) in 2027 as a key instrument for deepening regional economic integration and promoting sustainable, inclusive and resilient growth within the Community.”

The programme has been delayed for more than a decade. According to the final communique, “…the launch of the ECO shall commence with those countries that meet the established convergence criteria and are ready to participate. At the same time, appropriate support will be provided to countries that are not yet ready, with a view to facilitating their subsequent accession to the single currency.”

ECOWAS leaders also adopted the Declaration of Commitment to the Compact on the Future of Regional Integration “…there by reinforcing their collective resolve to consolidate regional unity, secure lasting peace, and accelerate shared, sustainable development across the ECOWAS and West African Community.”

The Authority also welcomed the signing of the Inter-Governmental Agreement on the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline (AAGP), reaffirming support for the project, involving ECOWAS countries, notably Nigeria, and Morocco.

The Authority expressed “deep concern over the continued deterioration of the security situation across the region, particularly in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, characterized by attacks, kidnapping, and disruptive operations by Terrorist Armed Groups (TAGs), insurgents, and bandits on communities and security forces, causing the loss of lives, destruction of property, and mass displacements.” It urged member States to settle their arrears of Community Levy and also “pledge capabilities” for the activation of the regional Force on counter-terrorism.

The mandates of Amb. Baba Kamara, the ECOWAS Special Envoy on Counter-terrorism and Chief Negotiator with the AES countries, Dr Lansana Kouyaté, were renewed for three years, and until December 2026, respectively.

The Authority thanked China for building and donating the ECOWAS new Headquarters building in Abuja.

Take nothing away from the achievements of ECOWAS as the best-performing among Africa’s eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Still, the realisation of most of the Freetown Summit goals will depend largely on the quality of leadership at the Commission, Community Institutions, and at the national level.

It remains to be seen what Faye, as Chair of the ECOWAS Authority and Gen. Diop, his compatriot from the nation of Teranga Lions, as President of the Commission, will bring to halt the dangerous leadership and reputational slide at the Abuja-based regional body.

Nigeria must step up to the table to lead the rescue mission before it is too late.

Ejime Is A Global Affairs Analyst And Consultant On Peace & Security And Governance Communication