By Abukakar Hashim
Sequel to Friday’s virtual meeting of ECOWAS Heads of States, chaired by Ghana’s President Nana Akuofo Ado, a delegation of Chiefs of Defence Staff CDS drawn from, states in the regional body will be in Ouagadougou on Saturday on ” a military and strategic assessment visit with their Burkina counterpart, particularly in ” assessing the Insecurity in the country, resulting from jihadist invasion, causing colossal loss of lives and the poor military capacity of the Burkina military to execute the war”, revealed a military source in Abuja.
The visit by ECOWAS CDS, will be swiftly followed, almost simultaneously, by a diplomatic assessment at ministerial level, of Foreign Ministers of ECOWAS.
The outcome of the CDS meeting will be channeled to the foreign ministers, for onward presentation to the authority of heads of state for implementation.
The source further revealed that ” military intervention is not currently on the table due to multiplicity of existential reasons”
It would be recalled that ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso on January 28, the third of its member State to receive such punishment within 18 months after Mali in 2020 and Guinea in 2021.
But it is not the first time that the 15-nation regional bloc founded in May 1975 would use the measure to whip wayward members into line. It happened to Niger and Guinea in May 2010, also over military coups, and Cote d’Ivoire in December 2010, due to electoral disputes between Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara.
What strategic conflict management lessons can ECOWAS leaders of today learn from their predecessors?
The times and circumstances might be different, but there are basics that might not necessarily require reinventing the wheel!
