President Akufo-Addo charged to lead efforts to unite the economic unity of West African states following years of disappointing attempts by predecessors.
The Director of Academic Affairs at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College Prof. Vladimir Antwi Danso says all economic integrations like the EU require a leader pushing through to make it happen.
He referred to the EU pointing out, leaders of Germany and France were the lynch pin that made the creation of the a political and economic union of 28 member states.
A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, with the Euro as the currency used by 19 members of the 28.
With an estimated population of over 510 million, the market is ranked the second largest if treated as a country.
But the opposite story of success is true for the ECOWAS, a reality President Akufo-Addo recognised in a speech to mark the 42nd Anniversary of the regional body in Accra.
“We are committed to introducing a common currency, the ECO, but so far there is still no sign of that this will become a reality,” he said.
ECO was first planned to be introduced in 2003, but this was postponed several times to 2005, 2010 and 2014.
Lamenting the failure to achieve integration, the president said “ECOWAS is somewhat peripheral to the lives of West Africans”.
In his observation, the slow integration in ECOWAS is “simply” that “the political will to make it real is less evident.”
Agreeing with the president, the international relations expert Vladimir Antwi Danso the best days of ECOWAS was seen during the era of leaders like Nigeria’s Obasanjo, Niger’s Mamadou Tandja and Ghana’s President Kufuor.
“…beyond them, the next leaders didn’t take ECOWAS as seriously” he said.
ECOWAS once Africa’s shining example of integration efforts has now been outstripped by East African Community (EAC), he said.
The EAC is composed of six countries in the African Great Lakes region in eastern Africa: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The community plans to launch a common currency by 2023 while ECOWAS appears to have no concrete date for the realisation of the ECO.
Vladimir Antwi-Danso testified that ECOWAS integration is “so dear” to Akufo-Addo and hopes he will revive the sagging dream of economic integration.
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