West African Leaders Address Regional Security Challenges

Africa Security Analysis (ASA) reports that the emergency ECOWAS summit held on June 22, 2025, in Abuja, highlighted a critical situation: West Africa is experiencing heightened violence and deteriorating political stability. During the summit, outgoing chair President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria transferred leadership to President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, who declared that the region is “at a crossroads” faced with numerous, overlapping threats.

President Bio’s address detailed the region’s complex crisis, including persistent instability in both Sahelian and coastal states, ongoing jihadist expansion, frequent coups and power struggles, uncontrolled arms trafficking, and advanced transnational crime networks. He emphasized the urgent need to enhance ECOWAS’s security mechanisms by improving intelligence-sharing, developing effectively deployable rapid-response units, and ensuring deeper institutional coordination to reinforce the union’s weakening constitutional framework.

A Decade of Political Turmoil and Shifting Alliances

Over the past decade, nearly half of ECOWAS's founding members have experienced coups or coup attempts, weakening regional unity. In early 2025, the juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formally withdrew from the bloc to form the Alliance of Sahel States. Their combined 5,000-strong force operates alongside jihadist factions, adding complexity to collective security efforts.

Rising Jihadist Threats

Insurgent groups have escalated assaults on major cities in Mali and Burkina Faso and targeted villages and military posts in Nigeria. ECOWAS leaders agreed that only unified, region-wide military measures can disrupt these expanding jihadist networks.

Standby Force Activation Delays

Reflecting on his tenure, President Tinubu acknowledged that “violent extremism and cross-border crime continue to grow,” and expressed regret over the slow activation of ECOWAS’s standby force. Initially conceived in 2023 to counteract the Niger coup, this rapid-deployment unit remains largely untested, raising concerns about its effectiveness against widespread threats across West Africa’s coastal region.

Challenges for President Bio

As the new chair, President Bio faces the formidable challenge of reintegrating non-compliant juntas into ECOWAS, which he described as the “ultimate test” of his leadership. While the bloc has previously conducted successful interventions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, the current simultaneous crises require a level of unity and agility that ECOWAS has yet to demonstrate.

Africa Security Analysis views the Abuja summit as a pivotal moment for ECOWAS. The bloc’s traditional methods of incremental peacekeeping and ad hoc military deployments now face significant limitations amidst a rapidly worsening security environment. Without substantial progress in operationalizing its standby force, enhancing intelligence collaboration, and reconciling member divisions, ECOWAS risks becoming an observer rather than a stabilizing force as insecurity continues to spread. Africa Security Analysis emphasizes that the region’s future depends on whether these warnings lead to cohesive and decisive action.