West African leaders were hosted by President Bola Tinubu on Sunday in the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja for the 67th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Six months after the last meeting in December 2024, the high-level summit concludes President Tinubu’s second tenure as Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority. He was first elected to the position on July 9, 2023, and was re-elected on July 7, 2024.
The 67th Ordinary Session was called at a crucial moment after the military juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Niger Republic declared their departure from ECOWAS earlier this year, leaving the regional bloc in shock.
Internal issues facing the union, rising insecurity, democratic regression, and the necessity of greater economic integration among member states are all anticipated topics of discussion during the summit.
The president of Nigeria asked for a paradigm change in the way the area handles its mineral wealth during his remarks earlier on Saturday at the first-ever West Africa Economic Summit (WAES), which was held at the recently opened Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre.
Tinubu declared, “The port’s warm pit era must come to an end.” Our wealth in minerals must be converted into manufacturing, jobs, technology, and domestic economic value.
By pointing out that the current state of raw resource exports merely restricts the region’s potential for sustainable growth, he emphasized the necessity of value addition and localized manufacturing.
Concerns were also raised by the president on the low intraregional commerce among ECOWAS member states, which is currently less than 10%.
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“Change is not assured by opportunity alone. “We shouldn’t wait for West Africa to get its act together, and neither will the global economy,” he cautioned.
For the region to realize its full economic potential, Tinubu stated that infrastructure investment, regional supply chains, and policy cooperation must be given top priority.
In addition to highlighting West Africa’s young as its most important asset, Tinubu cautioned that the demographic might become a burden if significant investments are not made in business, education, and technology.
Regional energy networks, data systems, and supply chains are essential to our development. He warned, “They will fall independently if we don’t design them jointly.
ECOWAS leaders were asked by President Tinubu to provide “concrete deals” that will transform regional designs into tangible transformation, rather than just making announcements.
“Our joint projects demonstrate what is possible when we collaborate,” he remarked, referring to the West African Power Pool, the Lagos to Abidjan expressway, and creative industry initiatives.
“However, we have to go from statements to actual agreements — from guidelines to real-world application.”
