Story by Nathaniel Nartey
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has highlighted the difficulties faced by ECOWAS in dealing with and preventing the overthrow of constitutionally elected governments by Military juntas in the sub region. This is on the back of several coup de tats in West African countries including Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso in recent times.
In all cases, ECOWAS was blamed by many who felt leadership of the regional bloc has not been proactive in preventing such occurrences and was only “loud” with strong worded statements of condemnation after each military takeover. Speaking at the Democratic Governance Conference in Turkey, (Antalya Diplomacy Forum) Madam Ayorkor Botchwey who is also Chairperson of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers defended ECOWAS, citing some impediments which according to her prevents ECOWAS from being proactive.
“All countries are sovereign and so looking in from outside can be a bit problematic. The incumbent in Guinea-Conakry changed their constitution to enable him to run a third term. For those looking on from outside it was problematic and you could predict the outcome but for those within the jurisdiction they were okay and it went on”.
Madam Ayorkor Botchwey noted that ECOWAS is working on amending its protocols on good governance to put in place measures that the Authority of Heads of States can embark on when they see things (like coup de tat and overthrow of constitutional regimes) happen.
The Antalya Diplomacy Forum, hosted by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, is being held in the city of Antalya in Turkey on the theme ‘’Recoding Diplomacy’’ under the auspices of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan between 11-13 March 2022. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is among a list of high-profile Speakers for the 3-day event.
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