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President Campaore is new Chairman of
ECOWAS
From Kwaku Osei Bonsu, GNA Special Correspondent,
Ouagadougou
Oaugadougou, Jan. 20, GNA – The 31st Ordinary Summit of
Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS ended in Ouagadougou
on Friday with the election of President Blaise Campaore of
Burkina Faso, as its new Chairman.
He takes over from the Nigerien President, Mamadou Tandja
who completed his two-term tenure during the one-day summit
attended by eight other Heads of State, including President
John Agyekum Kufuor.
The others were President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria,
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, President Faure
Gnassingbe of Togo, Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo,
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, President Thomas
Yayi Boni of Benin, and Malian President Amadou Toumane
Toure.
The new Chairman pledged to focus on the promotion of peace
and security.
Earlier, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of the ECOWAS
Commission, stated that the realities of global economic and
trade relations enjoined the 15-member sub-regional body to
re-examine the relationships between state sovereignty and
collective interests.
The world, he said, was now made up of powerful trade blocs,
where even the most powerful states have long abandoned
individual bargaining in favour of collective approaches to
trade negotiations and security.
“We therefore need to re-examine and interrogate
relationships between member-states and the Commission,
between ECOWAS institutions and other regional institutions
in the region to achieve greater synergy and avoid
duplication of effort and wasteful proliferation of
initiatives.”
Dr Chambas noted that ECOWAS has chalked significant
successes, citing the progress towards a common market and
negotiations with Europe under the Economic Partnership
Agreement, the ECOWAS common market involving the
consolidation of the free trade area and the introduction of
a common external tariff.
It has, in addition, made an appreciable headway in its
infrastructure programme and mentioned the 500
million-dollar flagship West Africa Gas Pipeline project,
now about 95 per cent completed and on course to pump
Nigerian gas to Benin, Togo and Ghana as one of its
achievements.
He used the occasion to pay glowing tribute to Nigerian
President Obasanjo who was attending his last summit of the
ECOWAS as Head of State, for his total and unalloyed
commitment towards the promotion of peace, security,
stability and democratic governance and development of the
region.
He provided leadership and made Nigerian human and material
resources readily available to end conflicts and restore
hope to the people in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau,
Togo and Cote d’ Ivoire.
President Obasanjo said, “We must remain steadfastly engaged
in the stability of member countries coming out of crisis to
ensure that there is no reversal of the peace situation.
“Our Organs and Agencies for the prevention, management and
resolution of conflicts must be strengthened and invested
with the capacity for proactive and pre-emptive action.”
He said it was his hope that now that the sub-region was
moving away from conflicts, it would settle down to the
purpose of economic cooperation and social integration.
Liberian President Johnson-Sirleaf, who was attending the
meeting for the first time, conveyed her country’s deep
gratitude to ECOWAS for saving it from total destruction.
She said they were going to pay back the sacrifices made for
Liberia’s peace by working with all to help bring peace to
all troubled spots in the sub-region.
Out-going President Tandja said without peace and security,
the individual and collective effort at achieving
integration by the ECOWAS member-states would come to
nothing.
The 15-member sub-regional body set up in 1975 would hold
its next summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja on June 7,
this year.
GNA
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