By Richard DABLAH
(richard.dablah@gmail.com)
The tectonic shift in West Africa’s geopolitical landscape, signified by the defection of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), is neither a mere act of defiance nor a fortuitous accident of history. It is the culmination of fractures long ignored, of contradictions laid bare, and of a people seeking sovereignty in the crucible of discontent. Yet in the annals of struggle, revolution is but the first act; the true test lies in the construction of a future that does not merely reject the past but surpasses it.
It has been said that he who rides the tiger must be prepared for the consequences of dismounting. The AES has challenged the regional order, but challenge alone does not constitute triumph. To sever bonds in protest is an act of will; to forge new structures of self-reliance is an act of wisdom. Sovereignty is not merely the absence of external diktat; it is the presence of internal strength. The AES, if it is to endure, must answer the urgent questions: Can it construct a viable economic framework? Can it provide stability without succumbing to military rule? Can it balance self-determination with the reality of interdependence?
ECOWAS, in its turn, must recognize that dominion secured through coercion is but an edifice of sand, destined to crumble beneath the tide of disillusionment. The imposition of sanctions against its erstwhile members was the bludgeon of a faltering authority, an admission of lost legitimacy rather than an assertion of strength. To punish nations without addressing their grievances is to ensure the very exodus one seeks to prevent. The measure of a regional bloc’s resilience is not in the severity of its decrees but in the depth of its unity, in the capacity of its leaders to inspire allegiance through mutual benefit rather than threats of reprisal.
The tragedy of Africa has never been in its resistance to imperial dictates but in its susceptibility to internal fragmentation. To resist foreign dominance is a necessity; to prevent the multiplication of internal fiefdoms is the greater challenge. If the AES is to serve as more than a temporary coalition against perceived oppression, it must ask itself: What structure shall replace what has been abandoned? If the answer is but another alignment of convenience, then the cycle of disillusionment shall continue.
The true danger facing both ECOWAS and AES is not each other; it is the omnipresent specter of external manipulation. A fractured West Africa is a feeding ground for imperial ambition, an invitation to the puppeteers of global hegemony to turn brother against brother, state against state. The enemies of Africa do not march upon its borders—they whisper in its corridors, they engineer its divisions, they present themselves as benefactors while tightening the noose of dependency.
Thus, the fundamental question before us is not whether ECOWAS or the AES shall prevail, but whether either shall be the vanguard of true African sovereignty. The choice before West Africa is not between a discredited old order and an untested new one, but between stagnation and renaissance. For the region’s future does not reside in defiant declarations nor in rigid decrees but in the creation of an economic, political, and security architecture that makes neither subjugation nor rebellion necessary.
It is folly to mistake rupture for revolution, just as it is perilous to conflate authority with legitimacy. The path forward must be paved not with reaction, but with vision. For it is not the act of severance that defines sovereignty, but the ability to stand thereafter, unshaken and unshackled. The forces of history are in motion; whether they shall forge a continent united in strength or one sundered by shortsighted ambition remains the decision of those who hold power today. Let them choose wisely, lest the fate of generations be written not by their will, but by the hands of those who have long sought to dictate Africa’s destiny from afar.
