Nigeria’s faltering leadership role in ECOWAS: Implications for sub-regional cohesion and development

Abstract

This paper examines Nigeria’s faltering role in the West African sub-region, especially in view of its population strength, military might, and economic resources. Consequently, Nigeria’s strength and credentials to become a hegemon in the sub-region are never in doubt. Nigerian leaders apparently understood the unique position that Nigeria occupies and conceived a foreign policy thrust that is Afrocentric as its “manifest destiny.” However, events in the Western sub-region have challenged Nigeria’s unique leadership roles through the flurry of military coups that produced juntas who have openly declared interest in exiting the sub-region’s supranational institution, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This development highlights Nigeria’s internal challenges and equally poses significant implication for sub-regional cohesion and development. The study adopts content analysis method and uses secondary sources in the public domain such as books, journal articles, seminar and conference papers, etc. The paper finds that Nigeria’s economic missteps have deterred socioeconomic development of other states in the subregion, and enabled the continuous destabilising activities of Western powers, who, for lack of a formidably powerful regional actor, micromanage leaders in the sub-region, and have unfettered access to its mineral resources. The paper also notes that the prevalence of coups d’état and the emergence of Russia in states where coups were successful follows decades of disillusionment, and the absence of a hegemon in the sub-region. It concludes that Nigeria’s chance to retake its position is possible only if it puts its house in order and can acquire the degree of sophistication and influence at the disposal of Western powers, with which they methodologically control and exploit non-
Western societies.