On June 28, 2023, a user of the microblogging website, Twitter, replied to a tweet made by the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) on its handle @BIDC_EBID. The tweet reply made by @Enyin_Naya stated that Nigeria is the major sponsor of ECOWAS.
EBID tweeted that “EBID’s $942.3M commitment to the service sectors in #ECOWAS is powering prosperity. By empowering businesses, reviving hospitality, and advancing IT, we’re weaving a resilient future. Each dollar signifies our drive for growth & innovation,” and the Twitter user responded by saying, “Wondering what you think about this. (if this is real) Nigeria is the major sponsor of ECOWAS but doesn’t appear to get that much in return.”
VERIFICATION – Is Nigeria the Major Sponsor of ECOWAS?
What is ECOWAS?
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional group of fifteen countries, founded in 1975. Its mission is to promote economic integration in “all fields of economic activity, particularly industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions, social and cultural matters.”
The Institutions of the ECOWAS are The Commission, The Community Parliament, The Community Court of Justice, and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID).
The ECOWAS region spans an area of 5.2 million square kilometres. Its Member States are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sénégal and Togo. The regional union which is considered one of the pillars of the African Economic Community, was set up to foster the ideal of collective self-sufficiency for its member states. The headquarters of ECOWAS is in Abuja, Nigeria.
Is it true Nigeria is a major contributor of the ECOWAS?
On July 29, 2020, Premium Times published a report analyzing the amount contributed by the countries under ECOWAS.
In the report, Nigeria paid more than $1,177 billion to ECOWAS as its Community Levy contribution in the last 16 years. According to documents from a presentation by the ECOWAS Commission to Parliament at Plenary during its Virtual Second Extraordinary Session, Nigeria paid 853,310,564 UA (West Africa Unit of Account) for the period under review. The West African Unit of Account (WAUA) is the authorised currency used in ECOWAS. The exchange rate for July 2022 obtained from ECOWAS shows that one Unit of Account equals $1.3799633.
“Nigeria’s payment represents 40.42 per cent of the total payment of $2,913,088,908 payment made by all the 15 member states, and is higher than the payments made by 12 other countries put together, except Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Ghana paid about $508,577 million, Cote d’Ivoire $347,262 million, while Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo paid a total of $879,711 million. Ghana’s payment represents 17.45 per cent of the total sum, Cote d’Ivoire 11.9 per cent, while the cumulative payment by the other 12 countries represents 30.1 per cent. Within the period under review, Guinea Bissau paid the lowest amount of 6, 204 million dollars, representing 0.2 per cent of total community levy proceeds in the 16 years under review.
“The Community levy was adopted in 1996 by the Authority of Heads of State as the major funding for ECOWAS after the initial contribution regime seemed ineffective. However, the Community Levy Protocol took effect in 2003 when all member states started its application. Based on this assessment, Nigeria had paid 64 per cent of its payments, leaving an outstanding of 36 per cent. Going by the above, if all countries had paid their complete levy, Nigeria alone would have paid more than $1,842 billion, representing 49.64 per cent of the total Community Levy accruable to ECOWAS.”
In a report published by The Cable on July 1, 2022, the House of Representatives resolved to review the benefit and contribution of the ECOWAS to Nigeria’s social and economic development. The lower legislative chamber mandated the committees on inter-parliamentary relations and ECOWAS parliament and foreign affairs to investigate Nigeria’s financial contribution to ECOWAS for the past 10 years. As part of the investigation, the committees were said to determine if the country’s financial contribution to ECOWAS is justifiable or not. The resolution was reached following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Awaji-inombek Abiante from Rivers State, Nigeria.
According to Awaji-inombek Abiante, Nigeria does not benefit “immensely” despite it’s more than $1.177 billion contribution to ECOWAS.
“In 16 years, Nigeria has contributed more than $ 1.177 billion to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as its community levy, and this is the highest contribution by any member state since its inception. Nigeria has immensely contributed to the ECOWAS- power supply to member states, medical interventions, and peacekeeping efforts in member states including the Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and Liberia among others. Despite Nigeria’s larger-than-life financial contributions to the ECOWAS, the country, and its citizens have not benefitted immensely.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Nigeria is the major sponsor of ECOWAS is TRUE following the report and figures published in 2020 on the contributions of member countries.
