THERE are several observations about the current conversation about an ESF:

One, there is an erroneous belief that if you have a Standing or Standby Force, they will be quickly and efficiently deployed in conflict situations. The truth is that every conflict is unique and will throw up specific forms of politics among members of the Standby Force or Standing Force.

For instance, would an ESF in which Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have soldiers be willing to be deplored to restore constitutional order in their countries after the military coups in those countries? Would an ESF be able to intervene in a conflict in Nigeria – especially given the size of the country, its ethnic and religious polarisation and the shared ethnic and religious bonds among some ethnic groups across different member states?

Two, a crucial question in any conversation about the ESF is who should be the mandating authority for any force deployment, especially in the context of the dynamics of global power play. While under the ASF framework, it was assumed that the Peace and Security Council of the AU should be the mandating authority; in most cases, this authorisation has come from the RECs and almost always must be with the acquiescence of the UN Security Council, which frowns at any intervention without its authorisation. 

For instance, though ECOWAS was the driving force behind the restoration of constitutional order in Mali in 2012 following a military coup and the subsequent Tuareg rebellion in the Northern part of the country, its request to the UN Security Council for authorisation of an African-led International Support Mission to Mali, AFISMA, and provision of voluntary and UN-funded logistics support packages (including equipment and services for an initial period of one year), was unnecessarily delayed. Yet the same UNSC, on April 25, 2013, authorized the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) under French leadership and asked AFISMA to be subsumed into it. 

Similarly, during the Libyan crisis of 2011, the AU’s several peace initiatives, including its unequivocal rejection of external military intervention in the country and development of a roadmap for peace which was accepted by Muammar Gaddafi and most of the actors in the conflict, was ignored, and in many cases undermined, by NATO members who appeared to harbour a vendetta against Muammar Gaddafi. In essence, if the UNSC, controlled by the five veto-wielding members of the Council, must authorise any intervention, then there is a considerable risk that the ESF will become just another tool in big-power politics. 

Three, any talk of ASF or ESF underestimates the force of the external ties pulling African countries in different directions. Regarding ECOWAS, the primary contradiction is between the Anglophone and the Francophone countries. For instance, the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, which was the closest to a standby force in the sub-region, was formed in 1990 mainly by Anglophone members of the group (essentially by Nigeria and Ghana with sub-battalion strength units from Guinea, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia and others) to intervene in the civil war in Liberia because several Francophone ECOWAS members strongly opposed any troop deployment to the country. The leaders of Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire supported Charles Taylor in his attempt to depose Samuel Doe. Charles Taylor had accused Anglophone members of the ECOWAS of a gang-up against him, which led to Senegal sending 1,500 soldiers to his aid. 

Unfortunately for Taylor, after a major confrontation between his forces and the Senegalese soldiers in Vahun, Lofa, county on May 28, 1992, Senegal withdrew its forces, making it easier for ECOMOG to assert itself in the conflict. With the withdrawal of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from the sub-regional body and suspicions in some quarters that Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has a close relationship with France (at a time anti-French sentiments are high in French-Speaking West African countries), it can be assumed that the contradictions between Anglophone and Francophone West Africa may have widened.

Four, why did the reputation built by ECOMOG from its interventions in the Liberian civil wars and its successful deployments to stop the RUF rebellion in Sierra Leone in 1997 and to end the Guinea Bissau Civil War in 1999, suddenly begin to atrophy? For instance, though ECOWAS planned to deploy 1,700 troops along the Guinea-Liberia border in 2001 to stop guerrilla infiltration by fighters opposed to the new post-1998 election government in Liberia, no force was ever deployed, ostensibly because of lack of funds. Similarly, in September 2003, ECOWAS launched the ECOWAS Mission in Liberia, ECOMIL, to end the Second Liberia Civil War with 3,563 troops from Nigeria, Mali, and Senegal, but this was quickly converted into United Nations Mission in Liberia, UNMIL, by the UNSC from October 1, 2003. Some attributed this to the unease by big powers about any regional intervention force they are not directly in control of and, of course, to the internal contradictions within the ECOWAS. 

Those pushing the new frenzy about ESF should carefully study the rise and fall of ECOMOG, which some have argued might have inspired the notion of ESF. Some Western commentators have unfairly attributed the early successes of ECOMOG to Western intelligence, technical, logistical, and financial support rather than to the fact that members had their booths on the grounds where they intervened.

Five, many of the current leaders of ECOWAS lack the requisite legitimacy and moral right to intervene in external conflicts because most are guilty of at least one of the three forms of coup-making in the continent – electoral coups, military coups, and tenure elongation. This undermines their moral authority to use force to restore constitutional order in any country, as happened when it tried to restore constitutional order following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

Six, there is also the question of who will pay for the ESF. Projecting power on the global scene is an expensive enterprise. And with Nigeria, the main financier of ECOWAS initiatives, in deep financial trouble, it is doubtful if the country still has the power of the purse to play the big brother role in the sub-region.  

Seven, there are also operational issues of who will lead the ESF. For instance, the first Commander of ECOMOG was a Ghanaian, Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo, but he was succeeded by an unbroken line of Nigerian officers on the argument that Nigeria was the primary funder and driver of the initiative. But that also bred resentment and eventually weakened ECOMOG as a force.

Eight, what should be the way forward? The current configuration of global power and Nigeria’s declining influence do not favour the sort of standby force envisaged by the ECOWAS. Nigeria needs to get its act together, and if it is seen as succeeding, it will become easier for others in the sub-region to line up behind its leadership. For now, the emphasis should be on the sub-regional body using whatever moral authority it has to persuade parties in any conflict. One of its bargaining tools could be reminding warring parties that escalating their conflicts could inevitably result in extra-African interventions and that such has hardly done any country any good. Essentially, the ECOWAS has to expand the carrots in its diplomatic toolkits and show better sensitivity to both the internal and the external constraints to its room to manoeuvre.

Concluded