Liberia’s Post-1990 Ecomog Incursion: An Assessment of Anglophone – Francophone Dichotomy

Muhammad Fuad Othman,Abubakar Mohammed Sambo,Rusdi Omar

doi:10.32890/jis.13.2017.7983

Abstract

One of the successful stories of regional economic communities (RECs) today is that of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Founded in 1975, it is a conglomeration of states having similar but distinctively different colonial experiences in West Africa; the Anglophone, the Francophone and the Lexiphone. Contemporary political events in the world had made ECOWAS flexible and receptive to reforms. Although there was little internal wrangling within the ECOWAS member states, because of the transformation and expansion of the economic bloc’s re-establishing, its grasps over political, security and social events within the sub-region after the cold war, the development brought division in ECOWAS, and expressed such in the form of Anglophone and Francophone dichotomy, for reason of not agreeing to military intervention. The ECOWAS shift from non-interference principles to military intervention was noticeable when ECOMOG intervened in Liberia’s 1990 internal conflict; thereby changing her non-interference posture to that of collective security action as an alternative in the sub-region. This paper attempted to establish the shift in ECOWAS security paradigm, leading to a division within ECOWAS member states along ‘linguistic lines’ and how this division affected ECOWAS in the post-Liberian intervention. Additionally, it x-rayed the nature, manifestation and consequences of such dichotomy. The paper recommended a policy option for ECOWAS to guard against future distractions among the member states in order not to divert ECOWAS from achieving her goals of economic integration.

Highlights

Since after independence, states have been involved in regional integration as a strategy for solving developmental related challenges in Africa
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was created when on 28th May 1975, General Gowon of Nigeria and President Eyadema of Togo signed a treaty providing for the setting up of what the Togolese President called “an embryo of a West African Economic Community” (John, 2012)
Located in Western Africa, south of the Sahara, the ECOWAS community is composed of 15 politically sovereign independent states, namely of the “Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’lvoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo” (Udoh, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

This is for reasons of the accrued benefits of “regional integration” that have been identified as a pivotal factor in the promotion of economic development. The West African states have three broad colonially-oriented lingua-franca; the Anglophone, the Francophone and the Lusophone. These divisions come out glaringly because of the colonial dominance that existed during colonialism and to some extent that exists within neo-colonialism, either as a hangover effect of colonialism or because of the present-day neo-colonialism as it unfolds and with–in the relationships of the erstwhile colonies, and the colonial mentors. The paper made recommendations for good policy options for ECOWAS as a bloc, so that it does not get distracted on its economic objective

Background to the Formation of Ecowas

Methodology

Conclusion