At the 67th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which was hosted in the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja on Sunday, President Bola Tinubu welcomed West African leaders.
The high-level summit concludes President Tinubu’s second term as Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority, a position he was re-elected to on July 7, 2024, after first taking office on July 9, 2023. It takes place six months after the last session in December 2024.
As the regional bloc still reels from the departures of Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Niger Republic, whose military juntas declared their departure from ECOWAS earlier this year, the 67th Ordinary Session was called at a crucial moment.
The bloc’s internal issues, rising insecurity, democratic reversals, and the necessity of greater economic integration among member states are anticipated to be discussed at the summit.
Earlier on Saturday, the Nigerian president called for a paradigm shift in the way the area handles its natural resources during the first-ever West Africa Economic Summit (WAES), which was held at the recently opened Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre.
“The period of warm pit to the port must come to an end,” Tinubu declared. Our mineral wealth needs to be transformed into industry, jobs, technology, and domestic economic value.
He emphasized the necessity of regional manufacturing and value addition, pointing out that the region’s potential for sustainable growth is only constrained by the current raw resource export status quo.
The President also voiced concern about the low intraregional trade among ECOWAS member states, which is now less than 10%.
“Transformation is not assured by opportunity alone. He cautioned, “The world economy will not wait for West Africa to get its act together—and neither should we.”
According to Tinubu, in order to realize its full economic potential, the region needs to give priority to infrastructure investment, regional supply chains, and policy cooperation.
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Tinubu highlighted the young of West Africa as its greatest asset and cautioned that the demography might become a burden if significant investments are not made in entrepreneurship, education, and technology.
Data frameworks, energy networks, and regional supply chains are essential to our economy. “They will fall apart if we don’t design them together,” he said.
In order to transform regional designs into actual change, President Tinubu asked ECOWAS leaders to deliver “concrete deals” rather than just pronouncements.
“From the West African Power Pool to the Lagos to Abidjan highway and creative industry initiatives, our collaborative projects demonstrate what is possible when we work together,” he said.
“However, we need to go from statements to actual agreements — from frameworks for policies to real-world execution.”
