On Friday, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo called on visiting Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to leverage his influence within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to help resolve ongoing disputes with Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali.
President Faye arrived in Accra early in the morning after meeting with Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In January 2024, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso announced their departure from ECOWAS following suspensions due to military coups in each country.
“We are fortunate to have a new leader who can help us address the significant issues within the ECOWAS community,” said President Akufo-Addo after his meeting with Faye. “President Faye is very committed to seeing what he and the rest of us can do to revive dialogue.”
Following bilateral talks, Akufo-Addo noted that Faye showed a strong commitment to ECOWAS’s efforts to bring the three countries back to the negotiating table and reintegrate them into the bloc.
President Faye, who won a resounding victory as an anti-establishment candidate and became Senegal’s youngest president, is viewed as a symbol of change against the backdrop of some of Africa’s long-standing leaders and military-run governments.
The 44-year-old leader expressed his readiness to tackle the challenge of reconciling ECOWAS with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. In Nigeria, Faye emphasised his hope, alongside Nigeria which currently chairs ECOWAS, to convince these countries to “return and share our common democratic values.”
Faye acknowledged that ECOWAS is “going through a rough patch, but not everything is lost,” according to the Nigerian presidency.