ABUJA, Nigeria
Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye, Africa’s youngest, is suddenly faced with a huge challenge of reuniting a weakened regional bloc that is older than him.
The 44-year-old Faye was
tasked on Sunday with getting the military junta-ruled Mali,
Niger and Burkina Faso back to ECOWAS at the bloc’s summit in
Nigeria’s capital Abuja. The three nations left ECOWAS and formed their own alliance after the military takeovers fractured their
relations with West African neighbors.
As a peace envoy supported by
Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, Faye is seen as possibly the
best among heads of state for a mission to try to woo the three nations back to
the fold of regional cooperation.
Beyond the appeal of security
and economic collaboration, ECOWAS’s
goodwill has waned in recent years, said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a
research analyst with the West Africa-focused Centre for Democracy and
Development. But the new role offers Faye an opportunity to possibly seek
reforms for “a more sustainable and self-reliant” ECOWAS, Adekaiyaoja said.
Faye also represents the
opposite of what the three military leaders claim they are against.
He had not been elected when
ECOWAS, founded in 1975, imposed
the severe sanctions on Niger following a coup last July. Niger cited
the sanctions as one of the reasons for leaving the bloc. Also, Faye’s victory in
this year’s election that was certified as credible stood in contrast to rigged
polls in the region.
At home, Faye is reviewing the
old ties that the junta leaders claim have stifled West Africa’s development,
though Senegal remains a key ally for the West. Under Faye’s leadership,
Senegalese officials are renegotiating contracts with foreign operators in the
country and, according to Finance Minister Abdourahmane Sarr, are “aiming to
free ourselves from the ties of dependency in our public policies.”
It is exactly what the junta
wants to hear, analysts say. Since ousting the democratic governments of Mali,
Burkina Faso and Niger, the generals have severed military and economic ties
with traditional Western partners such as the U.S. and France, saying they had
not benefited their countries. The shift has opened the window for Russia
to expand its footprint in the region.
“Like the other heads of
state, he (Faye) claims sovereignty and a break with the old order,” said
Seidik Abba, a Sahel specialist and president of the International Center for
Reflection for Studies.
Age is also not just a number
in the case of Faye, a former tax inspector. Even as the youngest president in
Africa, he is still older than three of the four current military leaders in
the region.
At Sunday’s ECOWAS meeting in
Nigeria, Faye was still among the youngest. Sitting across him was Ghana
President Nana Akufo-Addo, who at 80 is just four years younger than Faye’s
father.
When he visited Nigeria in
May, the Senegalese leader touted his age as an “asset” that can help open a
window for dialogue with the neighbors.
Faye’s task to dialogue with
the three countries would still not be easy, according to Abba, the Sahel
specialist. He said the three have wider concerns about the operations of
ECOWAS, which they say faces interference from foreign countries like France,
their former colonial ruler.
There is also a question of
how much freedom Faye and the Togolese president would have in their role as
envoys under an ECOWAS that has just re-elected Nigerian President Bola Tinubu
as its chairman.
Their success would depend on
“how best the different leaders can coordinate and agree” on the issues, said
Adekaiyaoja from the Centre for Democracy and Development.
No comments:
Post a Comment