Educate people on economic integration
West African leaders have converged on Accra to discuss certain pressing issues confronting the sub-region.
The Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS are being hosted by the Chairman of the sub-regional body, President John Mahama, to discuss the Ebola fever outbreak in some of the countries, trade and economic integration, a single currency and security issues, especially the situation in Mali.
About a month-and-a-half ago, the ECOWAS Chairman hosted his colleagues to a similar summit, at which the security situation in Mali and Nigeria was discussed.
Besides these issues that threaten the speedy development of the sub-region, there is also the issue of having ECOWAS on the doorstep of the people.
The key objectives of ECOWAS are to promote trade and economic integration among member countries and remove impediments in the way of the people’s efforts at moving from one country to another.
More importantly, bureaucracy should not stand in the way of the people to achieve the objective of the free movement of goods and services.
The people have always asked their leaders to bring ECOWAS closer to them and make the regional body people-centred, instead of its present image of a club of Heads of State and Government.
Be that as it may, the relevance of ECOWAS, as envisaged by the founding fathers in 1975, is still felt in contemporary geo-politics.
It is an established fact that ECOWAS has chalked up some successes, notable among them being the efforts at helping countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire to build from the ashes of war.
It is in this context that we heartily welcome the West African leaders to Accra to brainstorm on the deadly Ebola fever that has claimed lives in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
The leaders must also be encouraged to deal with the security situation in northern Mali and the threat of the jihadist group, Boko Haram, in Nigeria that has taken more than 200 schoolchildren hostage for some months now.
Our brothers and sisters under siege from terrorist groups in Nigeria and Mali need our support to break the back of these enemies of progress in order to provide a peaceful and stable environment for nation-building.
The Daily Graphic supports the call by President Mahama that “we must do everything in our power and means to defeat the deadly Ebola disease”.
The disease has no respect for our artificial borders and that is the more reason all the leaders in the sub-region should team up to eradicate the disease.
We know that the Accra Summit has a limited agenda, but beyond the Accra meeting, it is our hope that our leaders will spend time to re-examine ECOWAS protocols and conventions with the view to making the regional body a true club of citizens of West Africa and not just a body for our leaders to exchange pleasantries.
We have a lot to gain from strengthening the sub-regional body, so that it can compete on the basis of economies of large scale, instead of allowing individual countries to compete on the international market.
