The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has been in the news lately – mostly for the wrong reasons.
The bloc is facing its biggest crisis since it was formed in 1975. Three of its 15 countries – Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali – have broken away and formed an alternative grouping, the Alliance of Sahel States.
While Ecowas held a meeting of its members’ heads of state and government in Abuja on 7 July, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali were holding a parallel meeting in Niamey, Niger’s capital.