Lawmakers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have thrown their weight behind a push to punish member states that drag their feet on regional trade commitments, arguing that the bloc’s decades-old dream of a fully integrated West African market cannot survive on goodwill alone.
The endorsement came during a delocalized meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament’s Joint Committee on Industry and Private Sector, Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Research, Administration, Finance and Budget, and Public Accounts, held in Cotonou.
The gathering brought together lawmakers, technocrats, and private-sector representatives to take stock of how well the bloc’s member states are actually implementing the agreements they have signed onto.
At the heart of the debate is a frustration that has simmered within ECOWAS circles for years: despite long-standing agreements guaranteeing the free movement of people, goods and services, many member states continue to act unilaterally, undercutting regional trade and dragging down growth across the sub-region.
The call for sanctions did not originate with the lawmakers themselves. It followed a pointed recommendation from Dr. Tony Luka Elumelu of the ECOWAS Business Council Secretariat, who urged the bloc to penalize countries that fail to comply with agreed trade protocols in a presentation on trade facilitation, regulatory reform, and business formalization.
Elumelu’s argument was blunt: the problem isn’t a lack of policy. He pointed out that ECOWAS has already put in place sound policies, protocols, and legal instruments for private sector development and argued that what businesses need now is an enabling environment, not another round of new rules.
That framing resonated with lawmakers in the room. Nigerian legislator Hon. Bashiru Dawodu argued that the region can no longer afford a fragmented approach to economic development and insisted that ECOWAS must move past policy declarations toward actual enforcement, invoking the scale of what’s at stake: a regional market of roughly 400 million people whose economic promise, he suggested, has gone largely unrealised.
Enforcement, though, was not framed purely as a punitive exercise. Another lawmaker, Wongbe, proposed setting up a fact-finding committee to physically inspect border posts across the region, arguing that lawmakers who see the bottlenecks firsthand will be better placed to press national governments to dismantle them.
He said that experiencing what ordinary traders and travellers go through at the borders would stiffen lawmakers’ resolve to push for the removal of unnecessary roadblocks, which he noted raise transport costs and ultimately inflate prices for goods across the region.
The debate is unfolding against the backdrop of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), the bloc’s flagship instrument for freeing up the movement of people, goods and services across the sub-region.
Analysts within the sector believe the stakes go well beyond bureaucratic tidiness: stronger implementation of ECOWAS trade protocols could meaningfully lift intra-regional commerce, strengthen micro, small, and medium enterprises, and help chip away at poverty and unemployment while stabilizing the regional economy.
Crucially, the Parliament’s endorsement is not the final word. With both lawmakers and the ECOWAS Commission now converging on the need for tougher enforcement, the decision on whether sanctions actually become part of the bloc’s compliance toolkit will ultimately rest with the Authority of Heads of State and Government — the bloc’s highest decision-making body, made up of the sitting presidents of member states.
It’s a body that has not been shy about wielding sanctions before, though for a different purpose. ECOWAS has previously imposed sanctions in response to coups and unconstitutional changes of government, most recently against Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Those measures proved deeply contentious: the juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger cited what they called “inhumane” sanctions as part of their justification for announcing a withdrawal from the bloc altogether in January 2024, a move some commentators dubbed “Sahelexit.”
That history gives added weight to the current conversation. Trade sanctions and political sanctions are different instruments aimed at different failures, but any move to formalize punitive measures against member states will inevitably be read in light of the bloc’s recent, fraught experience with enforcement.
For now, the message from Cotonou is one of frustration edging toward resolve: ECOWAS lawmakers appear to agree that the region has enough protocols on paper. What it needs, they say, is the political will—and if necessary, the penalties to make sure those protocols are actually followed at the border.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
ECOWAS Parliament wants teeth added to its trade rules. Lawmakers in Cotonou agreed that the region’s problem isn’t a shortage of protocols it’s the failure of member states to actually implement them, especially around free movement of goods, people, and services.
Their solution is sanctions for non-compliant countries, backed by proposals like border inspections to expose real-world bottlenecks.
The real decision now shifts to the Authority of Heads of State and Government, who will determine whether sanctions actually become policy, and given ECOWAS’s recent, contentious history with sanctions (which pushed Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger toward withdrawal), that decision won’t be a simple one.
