ABUJA: The West African bloc ECOWAS on Sunday warned the region faced “disintegration” after the military rulers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso cemented a breakaway union.
The three countries formed a “Confederation of Sahel States” at a meeting on the eve of the Economic Community of West African States leaders’ summit, marking another test for the bloc they declared they were splitting from earlier this year.
ECOWAS is already wrestling with sweeping jihadist violence, financial trouble and challenges mustering a regional force.
It was not clear what action the bloc would take after its summit in Abuja, though Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu called on Senegal’s new leader to serve as a “special envoy” with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, without providing details.
The head of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said the Sahel countries’ withdrawal risked “political isolation,” losing millions of dollars in funding and hampering freedom of movement.
The break would also worsen insecurity and disrupt the work of the long-proposed regional force, Touray said.
“Our region is facing the risk of disintegration,” he warned.
The juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso came to power in a series of coups over recent years and announced their intention to leave ECOWAS in January.
They have shifted away from former colonial ruler France and expelled French troops, with Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani calling for the establishment of a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.”
“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Tiani said at the Sahel group meeting in Niamey on Saturday, rebuffing the bloc’s pleas to come back into the fold.
The three countries’ decision to leave was fueled in part by their accusation that Paris was manipulating ECOWAS and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts.
Several West African leaders have called for the resumption of dialogue, and Sunday’s summit was the first for new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who said in May that reconciliation was possible.
“We must do everything we can to avoid the withdrawal of these three brotherly countries from ECOWAS,” he said Sunday, adding that reforms were needed to “adapt ECOWAS to the realities of our times.”
Niger’s ties with ECOWAS deteriorated following the July 2023 coup that brought Tiani to power, which saw the bloc impose sanctions and threaten to intervene militarily to restore ousted president Mohamed Bazoum.
The sanctions were lifted in February but relations remain bitter.
ECOWAS has also been discussing how it can fund a “regional force to combat terrorism and restore constitutional order.”
It has suggested establishing an initial 1,500-member unit, and one proposal was to then muster a brigade of 5,000 soldiers at a cost of around $2.6 billion a year.
ECOWAS has launched military interventions in the past, but its threat of doing so after the coup in Niger fizzled out.
As the bloc grapples with regional challenges, Touray warned it was facing a “dire financial situation.”
ECOWAS also said President Tinubu would stay on as chair, despite reports of a rift over his reappointment.

PARIS: The French left is “ready to govern,” divisive hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said Sunday, after predictions showed a broad left-wing alliance could be the largest group in parliament ahead of the far right.
“Our people have clearly rejected the worst-case scenario,” said the three-time presidential candidate of the France Unbowed (LFI) party.
Leftist parties including LFI, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party joined forces last month to form the New Popular Front (NFP) after President Emmanuel Macron called snap polls.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal “has to go... The New Popular Front is ready to govern,” Melenchon said.
It is unclear who might be the alliance’s top candidate to be prime minister, with Melenchon a divisive figure even among some supporters of his own party.
Within Melenchon’s party, LFI lawmaker Clementine Autain called on the NFP alliance to gather on Monday to decide on a suitable candidate for prime minister.
The alliance, “in all its diversity,” needed “to decide on a balance point to be able to govern,” she said, adding neither former Socialist president Francois Hollande nor Melenchon would do.
The leader of the Socialist Party (PS) Olivier Faure urged “democracy” within the left-wing alliance so they could work together.
“To move forward together we need democracy within our ranks,” he said.
“No outside remarks will come and impose themselves on us,” he said in a thinly veiled criticism of Melenchon.

Raphael Glucksmann, co-president of the smaller pro-European Place Publique party in the alliance, said everyone was going to have to “behave like adults.”
In the projections, “we’re ahead, but in a divided parliament... so people are going to have to behave like adults,” he said.
“People are going to have to talk to each other.”
Communist leader Fabien Roussel, who lost his seat in the first round, said the left would rise up to the task ahead.
“The French have asked us to succeed. And we accept that challenge,” he said.
Marine Tondelier, the 37-year-old leader of the Greens, said it was too early to start suggesting the name of a prime minister.
But “we will rule,” she said.
Macron made the gamble of calling the parliamentary polls three years early after the far right trounced his centrist allies in European elections.
Stephane Sejourne, the secretary-general of Macron’s Renaissance party who has been foreign minister, won a seat in Sunday’s polls.
It is “obvious... Melenchon and a certain number of his allies cannot govern France,” he said.
“The lawmakers from the centrist bloc will ensure this in parliament.”