30/07/2023
THE ECOWAS OF THE PEOPLE!!!!
Come to think of it, the ECOWAS was formed at a time when the majority of the heads of state of the West African countries were military rulers who came into power by staging coups. These brave men, who took over the mantle of governance at the cost of their own lives, did so in response to the pitiful state of the lives of West Africans. These military leaders committed themselves to fighting and freeing their fellow countrymen from colonialists, American neocolonialists, and all imperialists. However, the officers soon realized that their efforts were fruitless because the political powers of the respective countries amounted to nothing against the united powers of their external rivals.
In addressing these concerns, the military-dominated West African leaders formed the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) to serve as a common authority and the vehicle for peace, stability, and prosperity for all West Africans against all external rivals. On 28th May 1975, the dream of the ECOWAS of the People became a common dream for all West Africans.
Over time, it became impossible to have the ECOWAS driven solely by its people without the democratic involvement of all the electorates of West Africa. In actualizing the ideals of the ECOWAS of the people, democratic institutions at both the national and regional levels became inevitable, which required the military leaders to give way for civilian governance.
Instead of genuine democrats who know what they are doing, we ended up with empty-headed imbeciles in big clothes and suits, whose only purpose in politics is to serve themselves at the expense of the masses. The call for the direct election of ECOWAS MPs, essential for the ECOWAS of the People, now falls on deaf ears. These democratic criminals, who have handed over the ECOWAS to the Europeans and Americans, have now invited their financiers into West Africa to protect them, using military forces under the guise of fighting terrorists and Islamic Jihadists.
We have sat down for far too long, allowing the elected criminals to hand over our ECOWAS to the very people our brave forebearers formed ECOWAS to protect us against. The ECOWAS has now become a platform by which European colonial masters and their American imperialists keep us oppressed.
The American imperialists, supported by the European colonialists, lead in insisting that we must have democracy in our respective colonies while ensuring that we are not allowed to vote directly for our ECOWAS MPs. The external powers, working with their internal collaborators, only care about the democracy of each of the ex-colonies, regardless of how impoverished the masses of West Africa suffer.
It is sad that the military boys are coming back again in response to the worsening plights of the growing population. Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and now Niger have joined the trend. It will not be a surprise to most of us when we wake up one morning and find the military in Nigeria or Ghana have taken over.
To add insult to injury, we are being threatened to adopt democracy by Canada, France, Germany, USA, Britain, Italy, and Belgium. Democracy is now being forced upon us? We are told that the Americans have a military base in Niger. Canada, Germany, France, Portugal, Belgium, Britain, and Italy all have military forces actively operating in Niger to protect their elected dictators.
To cut the long story short, we West Africans are not scared of military rulers as we have lived under them before. We have made the military return to the barracks after their mission, so we can do that again. We are hoping that the military will listen to our plight of completing what those before them started in the formation of the ECOWAS of the People. We hope that the military rulers will eventually stand with the people to have West African electorates voting DIRECTLY FOR THEIR ECOWAS Parliamentarians before handing over to the lawless civilian criminals.
Since the problem of West Africa is not CORRUPTION but the WEAK INSTITUTIONS of the ECOWAS, the military eventually handing over with the ECOWAS legislative body being genuinely democratic will result in West Africa ushering in peace, stability, and prosperity. The time has come. Ensure you join the genuine democrats to make the best of it.
Kofi Ali
