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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

As a result of the ambition for economic growth and regional integration among African nations, the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West Africa), the SADC (Southern Africa Development Community), the EAC (East African Community), and the ECCAS (East African Community) were established (Economic Community of Central African States). In the African Union, these sub-regional organizations are all officially recognized, and their different activities have contributed to the growth and development of the continent.

Before the formation of the Economic Community of West African Nations (ECOWAS), West Africa was made up of a number of states with a variety of cultures, customs, and indigenous languages that had developed as a result of various colonial experiences and administrations. In the centuries before colonialism, the West African region was home to numerous famous empires, including the Oyo Empire, the Sokoto caliphate, the Wolof, the Kanem Bornu, and the Mali Songhai. However, these empires lacked integration among themselves, which arose as a result of the diversity of ethnic groups, each with its own language, culture, and tradition (Onwuka, 2012).

The drive to promote regional integration and collaboration among these governments resulted in the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). To take advantage of this opportunity, one of the first measures made towards the integration of ECOWAS was taken in 1945, when all of the French-speaking nations in the area agreed to establish a common currency, known as the CFA Franc, as a means of promoting economic cooperation. After President William Tubman proposed an economic union for West African states in 1964, Guinea, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Sierra Leone signed a single currency agreement in 1985, but nothing tangible came of it until the Nigerian and Togolese heads of state, General Yakubu Gowon and GnassingbeEyadema, embarked on a regional tour in 1972 to campaign for and show support for the idea of regional integration, which ended in failure (Davidson, 1999).

Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, and Togo signed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Treaty on May 28, 1975, in Lagos. ECOWAS has as one of its key aims, as stated in Article 27 of the treaty, the creation of an ECOWAS citizenship for all of its member nations, which has contributed to the improvement of the level of life in all of its member countries. By establishing ECOMOG, the organization has contributed to the construction of a framework for security monitoring and control, which has helped to promote peace in the area. Due to the fact that commercial relations between member states are properly coordinated with the Protocol on Free Movement, the economic interests of member states have benefited as a result of this. Nigeria, for example, offers natural gas and power to member nations like as Benin, Ghana, and Togo, among others. These advancements have allowed the members to have a single purpose and objective despite their differences, despite the fact that various attempts have been made to establish a common currency with official languages being English and French in order to facilitate communication amongst the members. Due to the organization's pursuit of free movement of people, commodities, and money, the ECOWAS Protocol on the Free Movement, Residence, and Establishment of West African Citizens was drafted in 1997 to address this issue (Goodwin-Gill,2002).

The Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons, Residence, and Establishment was formed in May 1979, and it provided ECOWAS people the freedom to freely enter and depart any ECOWAS member state for a period of up to 90 days. The Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Residence, and Establishment was established with a 15-year implementation and establishment period. Within the first five years of the protocol on free movement, the use of visas into ECOWAS member states was abolished, and ECOWAS citizens with valid travel certificates and international health certificates were allowed to freely enter and exit within an ECOWAS state for a maximum of 90 days. The Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Residence, and Establishment was established with a 15- (Comfort,2013).

Under the terms of their individual national laws, ECOWAS nations may still reject entrance to an inadmissible immigrant into their country. After being deported from a nation, an immigrant's life, prosperity, and family should be ensured by the country in which he or she was deported (Adepoju, 2007). The delayed right of residence came into effect in July 1986 when all member states accepted it, despite the fact that the right of establishment has not yet been established. Member states are required to remove all forms of obstacles that prevent the Protocol on Free Movement from being implemented in order to achieve the objectives set forth in Article 2(2) of the Treaty of Rome, with the removal serving as a foundation for regional cooperation and integration in West Africa (Ojo, 1999).

In 1999, the ECOWAS commissioner for trade claimed that the region's objective of a borderless area, integrating, and forming one single currency union may be realized by regional collaboration and integration among member nations, according to Ike (1999). He, on the other hand, stated that inter-state boundaries continue to be barriers to free movement, noting that ECOWAS citizens experience stress and pain when crossing borders, and that, despite the abolishment of visa entry, travellers are still harassed illegally by customs and police forces, resulting in a variety of economic losses (Ike,1999).

The ECOWAS protocol on freedom of movement, residence, and establishment, which was established in 1979, has not been completely implemented by the member nations to date. While moving, ECOWAS individuals continue to be subjected to intense and severe examination by member state security services, resulting in the protocol's ineffectiveness.

Some of the issues affecting the application of the protocol, according to Esekumemu (2014), are as a result of political instability in member states; terrorism; transnational crime; poverty; underdevelopment; proliferation of small and light weapons; and other issues. These issues, among others, have prevented the full application of the protocol (Esekumemu, 2014). When speaking during the ECOWAS 40th anniversary celebration, Major General Akwa contributed to the above-mentioned concerns by stating that the bulk of ECOWAS accomplishments are not known to the majority of persons living in the community (Akwa,2015).

Panike (2015) said that there is no protection for life and property, and that the protocol was more concerned with security than with economic progress. That means that the protocol is simply a draft protocol and is not relevant in practice, as the connotation suggests. The focus of research by different researchers has mostly been on identifying the obstacles that the protocol faces and the achievements that the protocol has achieved, while leaving out the many efforts made by member nations to ensure the protocol's long-term viability.

Nigeria's most specialized function in the world community is that of peacekeeper, piece builder, and de-escalation of guerrilla warlords, particularly in Africa, and other parts of Africa. Since Nigeria's independence in 1960, she has participated in a number of United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa and the West Africa Region (WAR), as part of the combined United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the region. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, South Africa, Togo, Gambia, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone, among other places. Nigeria was a major contributor to the Economic Monitory Group (ECOMOG), which supplied military and civilian troops as well as logistical assistance to Liberia and Sierra Leone at the height of their respective civil crises in the late 1990s. This included a deployment of 1,500 soldiers to the ECOWAS Mission in Liberia (ECOMIL) in 2003 and a medical and signals team to the ECOWAS Mission in Cote d'Ivoire in the same year (ECOMICI). In 2004, as part of the African Union Mission in Sudan, 1,500 Nigerian soldiers were stationed in Darfur (AMIS). Nigeria has also recently deployed 1,200 soldiers to the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) and 200 police officers to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Nigeria deployed the first group of Individual Police Officers (IPOs) in Africa during the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) in 1960, and the first Formed Police Unit (FPU) of 120 officers was deployed in Liberia in 2004. Both units were pioneers in their fields.

Nigeria was the first country to send United Nations soldiers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1960 and 1964. Since then, Nigeria has been an active participant in United Nations peacekeeping operations, sending military contingents, unarmed military observers, military staff officers, established police units, police consultants, and civilian specialists to more than 25 UN peacekeeping missions throughout the world. Currently, Nigeria is one of the most significant contributors to the United Nations, with military and civilian troops serving in eleven UN peacekeeping missions as well as the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Nigeria has also played important roles in missions throughout Africa that are not part of the United Nations system. Nigeria, as the preeminent power in West Africa, has been the primary donor of military and other resources for ECOWAS peace operations, contributing more than US$8 billion to the total (Dokubo, 2005). However, since the mid-2000s, Nigeria's internal security issues have had an impact on the country's capacity to continue its soldier commitment to peace operations in the international community. Troops are progressively being sent to danger regions around Nigeria, with the majority of them being concentrated in the northeast, which has been severely damaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Nigeria, like other countries, has expanded her position in the international community by establishing an observation mission. It was codenamed Operation Restore Democracy. The ECOWAS military intervention in the Gambia, also known as the ECOWAS Mission in the Gambia, abbreviated ECOMIG, was a military intervention by several West African nations to restore internal order in the government of the Gambia people. In a historic move to defend democracy, West African troops entered the tiny West African nation of Gambia to oust a president who had refused to relinquish power following an election defeat. President Yahya Jammeh was forced to resign and flee the country two days after the initial military incursion and has since gone into exile. Following Barrow's absence from the country, state military stayed in the country to ensure law and order in preparation for Barrow's return and consolidation of power as President of the Gambia. Senegalese military, on the other hand, arrived in Gambia only hours after the country's new president took office. Despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had not approved military action, Senegalese armed troops invaded the Gambia on the same day, along with some soldiers from Ghana, and with air and maritime backing from the Nigerian Air Force and Navy (Wikipedia, 2019)2.

Specifically, foreign policy studies the pattern of interactions through which international actors, mostly, but not entirely, governments create decisions and strategies for interacting with other members of the international community (Idisi and Idise, 1996).

Moreover, the African Union (AU) is a continental organization comprised of 55 member nations all of which are situated in the African continent The foundation of the African Union was declared in the Sirte Declaration, which was signed in Sirte, Libya, on September 9, 1999, and which called for the establishment of an African Union. The bloc was established on May 26, 2001, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and officially inaugurated on July 9, 2002, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Aiming to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was created on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa by 32 signatory states, the African Union was established on 9 July 2002 in Addis Ababa with the purpose of replacing the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The Assembly of the African Union, which meets twice a year and brings together the heads of state and government of the African Union's member countries, makes the majority of the organization's most significant decisions. The African Union Commission, which serves as the secretariat of the African Union, is situated in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Since the establishment of the African Union (AU) in 2002, which succeeded the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU), the legal and political environment on the continent of Africa has changed, and it is expected to alter much more in the future.