Last Wednesday, President Bola Tinubu and leaders of 12 West African states walked into Lagos’ Eko Hotel. They smiled for the cameras beneath a glittering “ECOWAS@50” banner.

Among them stood 90-year-old Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd.), the lone surviving witness to the bloc’s birth cry in May 1975.

 

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The photographs will enter ECOWAS’ archives as proof that, half a century on, the organisation still breathes. Yet, as the siblings took their seats, eyes strayed to the three metaphoric empty chairs, a stark reminder that while the majority are still talking, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are no longer part of the pride.

Imagine a sprawling compound on a humid Wednesday afternoon in 1975. Fourteen brothers from different foster homes signed a deed, pooled their resources, fenced the yard, paved the shared driveway, and promised to plant more trees and share chores so everyone felt included.

They also pledged to keep the lights and fridge humming so trade, study, and marriage would be easy across the neighbourhood. Bound by geography, no brother was meant to do life in hard mode.

 

Every May, they gathered. Fifteen wooden chairs around the table, Jollof warming on a stove, and cutlery clattering from hand to hand.

But over the years, quarrels crept in. Pocket money went missing. Some brothers skipped chores as crises at home stole their focus. Older siblings tried to lecture the rest on good behaviour. Sometimes, high-handedness overshadowed empathy; finger-pointing became a habit.

Twenty-five years later, one brother stormed out and never returned. About 20 years later, three more stormed off after a furious quarrel. If they could uproot their landmasses, they would have done so.

 

So, on the golden jubilee day, Tinubu welcomed the remaining 12 siblings to Lagos. They traded polite toasts, yet the mood stayed brittle.

Smiles surfaced, then faded as eyes met the vacant seats, names etched on them — Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

“What exactly are we celebrating? The silverware? The chandelier? Or the fact that the roof, though leaking, has not yet caved in? Can we still call it home?” some may have mused.

 

Older readers remember the optimism of May 28, 1975, when Gowon hosted 14 fellow heads of state to sign the Treaty of Lagos. Cabo Verde joined two years later. The goal was to turn a patchwork of post-colonial economies into a single, buzzing market.

The strategy was clear: tear down tariff walls, open roads from Badagry to Bamako, and launch a shared currency so traders would not need calculators to price tomatoes in Cedi or CFA.

The blueprint worked for a while. By 1979, the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons allowed mechanics from Onitsha to fix taxis in Accra without visas. Cross-border trade in tomatoes and textiles thrived long before the African Continental Free Trade Area was born.

ECOBANK, built from the ECOWAS Fund, still finances start-ups from Accra to Abidjan.

When civil wars erupted in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, ECOMOG soldiers, many of them young Nigerians, kept the peace while the United Nations scratched its head.

 

In 2016, the bloc helped safeguard Gambian democracy after Yahya Jammeh went rogue.

However, ECOWAS has faced significant challenges. For example, it took 35 years to agree on a common external tariff, and the launch of its single currency, the Eco, has been delayed six times.

Intra-regional trade still hovers at around 10 per cent, Africa’s lowest regional share after SADC. The bloc talks of “citizenship,” but border guards in Seme still treat travellers like smugglers. Sahelian jihadists now roam four states with impunity. Mauritania left in 2000, grumbling that the family never understood its Arabic accent.

Then, the coups came. When soldiers in Niamey toppled President Bazoum in 2023, ECOWAS, under Tinubu’s fresh chairmanship, froze Nigerien assets and threatened force.

Neighbouring juntas cried bullying, staged a collective walkout, and formed their own Alliance of Sahel States.

A club once proud of its size now counts 12 members and a shrinking roster of democracies. One could argue that last Wednesday’s family meeting felt less like a reunion and more like a reminder that a quarter of the clan was missing.

 

In July 2023, Tinubu inherited the ECOWAS chairmanship from Guinea-Bissau’s Umaro Embalo just weeks before the Niger crisis.

Though you wouldn’t blame him for the unfortunate timing of events, some analysts argue that threatening invasion and cutting Niger’s power supply accelerated the slide to a 12-member bloc. After two years in office, Tinubu will hand over the chair in July. His tenure produced a Regional Force Task Team and a dedicated stabilisation fund, though still just ideas on paper.

But ideas rule the world, don’t they? We also saw sanctions on Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso partly relaxed, easing tensions.

 

Yet the story is far from finished. Though bruised, ECOWAS is still breathing. More importantly, it appears willing to receive its prodigal brothers back home.

 

Stephen Angbulu