From Colonial Statism to Regional Solidarity: ECOWAS and the Remaking of Governance, Law, and Justice in West Africa

From Colonial Statism to Regional Solidarity: ECOWAS and the Remaking of Governance, Law, and Justice in West Africa

Bakary S. Sonko

Tver State University, HSE University and University of the People

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.908000268

Received: 06 August 2025; Accepted: 12 August 2025; Published: 06 September 2025

ABSTRACT

This study examines the transformative role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in reshaping postcolonial governance by conducting a comparative analysis of The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. Combining archival research and policy analysis, it shows how colonial administrative legacies (1946–1957) continue to condition the implementation of ECOWAS’ digital governance, climate justice, and legal harmonisation agendas. The paper suggests introducing an innovative “Afrofuturist Governance Framework” to analyse youth-led mobilisations and digital sovereignty initiatives reshaping regional integration. Most notable findings illustrate wide variations in compliance: Ghana’s hybrid legal system boasts 78% of its laws conforming to ECOWAS protocols, whereas The Gambia achieves a meagre 34%, and Nigeria selectively resists supranational jurisdiction. By connecting decolonial theory to institutional analysis, the study contributes to the emerging debate on decolonial regionalism and offers tangible policy recommendations like the establishment of an ECOWAS Digital Fund, Youth Advisory Councils, and a Regional Climate Justice Court. The essay contends that the integration can only be long-lasting if it not only lawfully harmonises but also reimagines the character of governance in a manner that transcends colonial blueprints.

Keywords: ECOWAS, legal harmonisation, colonial legacies, Afrofuturism, digital governance, climate justice, West Africa, regional integration

INTRODUCTION

In July 2023, when tanks rolled into Niamey following a coup in Niger, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) faced a moment of truth, not only as a regional security institution, but as a contested postcolonial architect of governance (Vines, 2023). The bloc’s choice to sanction and threaten the use of force was presented as a defence of constitutional order under the 2001 ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. However, mass public opposition throughout the Sahel challenged the legitimacy of a regional organisation that appeared to be imposing neocolonial discipline over democratic will (Tieku, 2023, p. 112). This struggle between national sovereignty and regional control, between integration and autonomy, lies behind West Africa’s ongoing inability to transcend its colonial heritage and forge a new model of solidarity.

ECOWAS, established in 1975, has expanded from a modest economic cooperation agreement into a sophisticated regional organisation with jurisdiction over trade, peace and security, human rights, and increasingly digital and environmental matters (ECOWAS, 2021). Its vision for investment-led growth and regional integration is premised on the harmonisation of 15 member (now 12 after the Sahel states left the bloc) states’ institutions, laws, and policies. However, this vision is perennially weakened by deeply entrenched colonial legacies that continue to shape legal architecture, administrative culture, and political imagination.

These legacies are not footnotes of history. As archival records from the late colonial period (1946–1957) reveal, British and French colonial regimes institutionalized other models of administration, the indirect rule and assimilation, which entrenched legal dualism, centralisation of state authority, and dissemination of judicial power (Boahen, 1989; Ake, 1996). These systems were bequeathed, rather than abolished, at independence, producing what this research refers to as colonial statism: a governance model characterised by extractive administration, elite capture, and weak accountability (Ninsin, 2007, p. 45).

Now, this legacy comes in between the strength of ECOWAS’ legal instruments. While the union has signed progressive blueprints such as the Revised Treaty (1993), the Common Investment Code (2008, revised 2021), and the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, their localisation varies wildly among the members (ECOWAS, 2021). Ghana succeeds in implementing 78% of ECOWAS protocols, whereas The Gambia fails at 34%, and Nigeria tends to disobey supranational judicial oversight.

This study then asks: How do histories of colonialism shape the implementation of ECOWAS’ legal and governance reforms, and how can other futures be imagined through youth-led and technology-mediated forms of regional solidarity?

• How did colonial administrations’ models (1946–1957) establish enduring institutional path dependencies within West African law and government systems?
• To what extent have ECOWAS legal frameworks, namely the 2001 Democracy Protocol and rulings of the ECOWAS Court of Justice, transformed national governance in The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal?
• What is the role played by youth movements and digital sovereignty efforts towards the building of a new paradigm of Afrofuturist regionalism?
• What policy structures will strengthen legal harmonisation while preserving national sovereignty and promoting inclusive development?

Research Objectives

• To trace the institutional persistence from colonial times to contemporary legal fragmentation in West Africa.
• To assess the effectiveness of ECOWAS institutions in facilitating legal harmonisation and investment-led development.
• To analyse case studies of The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal on compliance, resistance, and innovation.
• To propose an Afrofuturist Governance Framework as a decolonial solution to top-down integration.
• To offer practical policy recommendations for reforming ECOWAS.

METHODOLOGY

This study employs a qualitative comparative case study methodology, combining:

• Historical research from British Colonial Office documents (CO 554, The National Archives, UK) and French Archives d’Outre-Mer (Aix-en-Provence) between 1946–1957.
• Legal and policy analysis of ECOWAS treaties, protocols, and court decisions.
• Comparative case studies of four West African countries: The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
• Compliance metrics from ECOWAS Annual Reports and Afrobarometer surveys (Appendix C).

Theoretical contributions draw on decolonial regionalism, legal pluralism 2.0, and the newly developed Afrofuturist Governance Framework, premised on youth agency, digital innovation, and epistemic justice.

Theoretical Framework

Decolonial Regionalism

Neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism are traditional theories of regional integration based on European experiences and barely considering the asymmetries, the historical traumas, and the epistemic hierarchies that define African regionalism (Mansfield & Solingen, 2010). Decolonial regionalism, a critical approach, emerges as a response to refute the Western model of governance reproduction and call for region-based forms of solidarity (Ankerl, 2000).

Decolonial regionalism demands that integration take on the structural legacies of colonialism, arbitrary borders, exploitative economies, and centralised states. It insists on epistemic justice, implementing indigenous knowledge, local languages, and subaltern viewpoints within regional policymaking (Grey, 2020, p. 89). As Adebajo (2022) argues, “Africa’s regional bodies must not become new sites of imperial discipline, but spaces of collective liberation” (p. 156).

This study employs decolonial regionalism to critique ECOWAS’ from above harmonisation and investigate other alternatives based on participatory democracy and cultural sovereignty.

Legal Pluralism 2.0

Legal pluralism, the coexistence of numerous legal orders in a single jurisdiction, has existed for a long time in African contexts (Benedix, 2015). Still, mainstream theories assume that customary and religious laws are frozen, second-order regimes. This study formulates Legal Pluralism 2.0, a dynamic model which sees legal hybridity as a space of innovation and resistance, not a barrier to integration.

In West Africa, layered legal regimes of English common law, French civil law, Islamic Sharia, and multifarious customary regimes interact with each other in complex ways. Rather than seeking to repress this pluralism in the shape of uniform codification, Legal Pluralism 2.0 is advocating dialogic harmonisation, a process where regional norms are negotiated with local institutions, giving it legitimacy and adaptability (Kpanou, 2018, p. 98).

For example, the combination of traditional land courts with formal ones in Ghana is a hybrid governance that pays respect to local knowledge but enhances legal certainty for investors.

Afrofuturist Governance

Inspired by the cultural phenomenon of Afrofuturism, which thinks Black futures along with technology, art, and speculative imagination, this study suggests the Afrofuturist Governance Framework as a theoretical framework for conceptualising new forms of regional solidarity.

Afrofuturist Governance is a foresight-driven, youth-led, and technologically enabled vision of regional integration that challenges colonial statism by emphasising digital sovereignty, climate justice, and future-making (Stamm, 2021, p. 570).

The approach looks at how young West Africans, through digital platforms, social movements, and civic tech, are re-imagining citizenship, accountability, and belonging. A few examples are:

#FixLagosNow: A youth-led movement using geospatial apps to report road failure in Nigeria. Yennenga Digital: A Burkina Faso-driven initiative promoting open-source tools for governance in the local language. ECOWAS Climate Youth Assembly: An online campaign demanding a regional climate justice court. By keeping these innovations front and centre, the architecture moves beyond criticism to imagine what could be, not what is.

Theoretical Framework

Table 1. By Author.

Colonial Legacies and Institutional Path Dependencies

Ghana’s Model Colony: The Gold Coast Experiment (1946–1957)

After World War II, British colonial powers increasingly put forward the Gold Coast as a “model colony,” projecting it as the paradigm of gradual, peaceful transition to self-government in Africa. This was a discourse at least as much ideological as administrative. It aimed to establish that British imperialism might be a beneficial, developmental force, particularly in the context of mounting world pressures toward decolonisation and self-determination (Austin, 1964). At its core was the 1946 Burns Constitution, a move formalising limited African political representation. It expanded the Legislative Council to include African members, though indirectly elected, and opened up the advisory role of the Executive Council, which continued to be firmly in the grasp of the British-nominated Governor (Boahen, 1989, p. 112).

The 1954 Constitution, crafted under the leadership of Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke and under the powerful influence of nationalist pressure of Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP), went even further. It introduced direct elections and an African-majority cabinet, effectively clearing the way for full internal self-government. But this formal political liberalisation hid continuities of colonial domination. Far from dismantling the apparatus of colonial control, these constitutional reforms reinscribed British power within the colony’s administrative and juridical institutions.

One of the prime facilitators of this continuity was the continuity and institutionalisation of indirect rule. Introduced initially by Lord Lugard in Northern Nigeria, indirect rule in the Gold Coast was also reflected in the reinforcement of traditional chieftaincies and native authorities. Documentary evidence in the archives reveals the strategic logic underpinning this policy. As colonial documents in the Colonial Office (CO 554/328, 1951) confirm, British administrators consciously preserved and bureaucratized chiefly institutions and integrated them into land administration, taxation, and local adjudication programs. Chiefs were turned into quasi-state officials, remunerated from the colonial treasury and subject to dismissal by the colonial administration if uncooperative.

It created a dual legal order. English common law governed commerce, contracts, and crime, especially in towns and commercial cities. Customary law, the structured, codified, and selectively administered one by colonial legal officials, governed matters of personal status, land tenure, marriage, and inheritance. The traditional courts operated under the authority of the colonial judicial apparatus, which claimed to “preserve tradition” but in reality redefined it in order to serve the needs of the empire. As Mamdani (1996) rightly observed in his analysis of the bifurcated colonial state, this legal dualism reproduced a distinction between ‘citizens’ (subject to civil law) and ‘subjects’ (subject to customary law), entrenching unequal justice and political representation.

The consequences of this legal dualism continue to manifest themselves in contemporary Ghana. Land tenure conflicts, chieftaincy disputes, and colliding jurisdictions between statutory and customary institutions are direct legacies of the colonial legal system. Even in post-colonial times, since constitutional reforms, coexistence between the two legal regimes has hampered the emergence of a clear, coherent, consolidating national legal system.

Equally pertinent was the concentration of the exercise of executive power under the colonial state. The Governor possessed one of the largest powers of legislation, the judiciary, and the civil service. Post-independence leaders, notably Kwame Nkrumah, acquired and redirected this centralised machinery to work on behalf of a new ideological agenda: the one-party developmental state. In the words of Ake (1996, p. 67), postcolonial states in Africa were inclined to reutilise the coercive and hierarchical colonial state to seek rapid modernisation, nation-building, and political consolidation. In Ghana, the 1960 Republican Constitution bestowed the executive presidency with virtual omnipotence, a reflection not of revolutionary break but of path-dependent development of colonial dominance.

Thus, the “model colony” legend of the Gold Coast was a cover for a complex reality. Instead of being a workshop in democratic self-government, late colonial Ghana was a carefully controlled political climate in which British rulers experimented with graded reforms designed to co-opt nationalist forces and maintain control.

Comparison Analysis: The Gambia and Senegal

The divergent colonial trajectories of The Gambia and Senegal offer an engaging glimpse of the enduring effects of imperial institutional and legal form in West Africa. Despite their geographic proximity and shared deep historical, cultural, and linguistic ties, the two countries were governed under sharply different colonial legal regimes, British indirect rule and French assimilation, respectively. These divergent paths continue to shape their postcolonial legal frameworks, institutional capacity, and integration into regional integration efforts such as ECOWAS.

The Gambia: Enclave of Extraction

The Gambia experienced a colonial past of peripheralization and underdevelopment. As a British enclave of shallow depth fully surrounded by French-ruled Senegal, The Gambia was originally administered as a dependency of Sierra Leone until 1888, a reflection of its low strategic value in the British Empire. Colonial rule in The Gambia was focused almost exclusively on groundnut export production, with little interest in institution-building or infrastructural development. As Zolberg (1966, p. 134) remarks, The Gambia was effectively functioning as an economic appendage of British West Africa, not as a politically independent entity.

The 1946 constitution, introduced during a wave of postwar reforms in Britain, provided token African representation through advisory councils. Executive and legislative authority continued in the hands of the colonial governor, and the judicial services continued to be under-heavily funded. Official documents (CO 554/1137, 1950) highlight understaffing in the judiciary, the employment of foreign judges, and exclusion of access to legal services in rural areas.

In 1965, independence left The Gambia with a debilitated state apparatus and modestly equipped bureaucracies and judicial capacity. Customary and Islamic law continue to dominate the rural areas, both as an extension of past trends and due to the failure of the postcolonial state to extend formal institutions of law beyond the colonial capital. There is a formal judiciary, but it is under attack from chronic arrears, inadequate resources, and allegations of political harassment and corruption. These institutional weaknesses have weakened The Gambia’s capacity to adopt legal reforms to harmonise its laws with regional standards.

Only 34% of ECOWAS protocols and legal instruments had been domesticated into law in 2023, putting the country at the lowest level of regional performers. Such limited compliance reflects both elite opposition to regional norms, particularly those impinging on domestic sovereignty or holding state officials accountable, and institutional weakness. Gambia’s ills emphasise the long-term consequences of colonial neglect and the complicated interplay between legal pluralism, weak state capacity, and regional integration.

Senegal: Assimilation and Its Limits

Conversely, Senegal, more specifically, the area of the Four Communes of Saint-Louis, Gorée, Dakar, and Rufisque, was promoted by French authorities as a shining example of assimilation. Under this policy, select African subjects were granted access to French citizenship, juridical protection, and political representation. The Napoleonic Code was formally applied in the communes, and a centralised colonial bureaucracy was established (Hrbek, 1996, p. 22). In theory, Senegalese in these societies were “citizens” of France and not colonial subjects.

But the hopes of assimilation were mainly unfilled outside the Four Communes. Colonial domination for the vast majority of Senegalese, and especially rural Senegalese, was characterised by the indigénat, a repressive legal regime that allowed for summary justice, limited civil rights, and reaffirmed hierarchical control. Cooper (2005) suggests that French colonialism in Africa moved back and forth between universal rhetoric and legal dualism practice. Assimilation thus accompanied deep disparities in access to justice and civil rights.

After independence in 1960, Senegal continued the tradition of civil law, preserving much of the legacy legal and administrative apparatus inherited from France. This comprised a codified regime of law, a centralised judiciary, and a career civil service. Senegal likewise joined OHADA (Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires) in 1995, a regional law regime designed to harmonise corporate law across 17 African countries. OHADA membership has improved legal stability, boosted investor confidence, and encouraged economic activity across borders. Senegal had domesticated 72% of ECOWAS protocols as of 2023, evidence of both institutional capacity and political will towards regional integration.

Despite this, Senegal’s legal system remains contradictory. Executive dominance of judicial appointments and administrative process still prevents judicial autonomy. The legacy of centralisation, though one guaranteeing legal uniformity, far too often reduced local processes of conflict resolution to the periphery of formal legal institutions, allowing for a disconnection between institutions and the lived experience of rural life. Traditional systems of justice, especially in family and land law issues, continue to be extensively employed but are inadequately incorporated within the formal justice system. This segregation is a manifestation of the constraints of legal centralisation, most evident in diverse societies where informal institutions maintain social legitimacy.

Comparative Insights

Comparative study of Senegal and The Gambia demonstrates how postcolonial trajectories are shaped differently but interdependently by colonial legal legacies. While The Gambia’s British-derived law encouraged legal pluralism and institutional fragility, Senegal’s French system favoured centralisation and codification. The result has been varying capacities to address regional legal harmonisation programs such as ECOWAS and OHADA.

Figure 1. Gambia vs Senegal ECOWAS Protocol Domestication by the Author

In The Gambia, the weakness of state institutions, coupled with historical neglect and underinvestment in human resources, has slowed both legal reform and regionalisation. Senegal, however, has drawn upon its stronger institutional foundation to become more aligned with regional norms, albeit at an expense. In both of these cases, however, traditional law continues to provide ordinary justice, suggesting that postcolonial legal orders should be thought of as hybrid systems, shaped by colonial inheritance as well as indigenous sociopolitical dynamics.

This difference speaks to the need for context-sensitive efforts towards legal integration in West Africa. While harmonisation efforts like ECOWAS protocols and OHADA laws are important blueprints, they function if there exists domestic legal capacity, political will, and capacity for synchronising formal norms and realised legal realities.

The Gambia vs. Senegal, Colonial Legacies and Regional Integration

Table 2. By Athour

ECOWAS Mechanisms: Law, Justice, and Compliance

The 2001 Democracy Protocol, or the Protocol on the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security, is a highlight of ECOWAS institutionalisation. This codified basic principles of democratic governance like free and frequent elections, civilian supremacy over the military, and clear term limitation. Particularly, Article 45 enables the imposition of sanctions in instances of unconstitutional changes in government.

This policy became the legal framework of ECOWAS’s intervention in Niger in 2023, following a coup. The bloc invoked Article 45 to justify threats, use of the military, and sanctions, showing its progression toward the imposition of constitutional order among the members. This imposition has, however, been contentious. Others, including Tieku (2023), criticise that the protocol institutionalises a “securitised regionalism” that tends to prioritise regional stability over the democratic will of the masses. Moreover, enforcement is perceived to be unbalanced: while Mali and Guinea have been inflicted with quick and comprehensive sanctions, Burkina Faso’s junta has acted with certain impunity, raising double standards issues in regional governance (Tieku, 2023, p. 115).

The ECOWAS Court of Justice (CCJ), established under the Revised Treaty and commencing operation in 2001, was further entrusted with powers by the Supplementary Protocol of 2005 to adjudicate on human rights abuses, interpretation of treaties, and matters between states. Being a sui generis, autonomous judicial organ, it plays the most pivotal role in forging the regional rule of law.

One of its finest pronouncements was in Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) v. Nigeria (2009), where the Court declared that the Nigerian state’s failure to provide adequate healthcare and education amounted to a violation of the rights of the people under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This groundbreaking judgement expanded the list of justiciable economic and social rights in West Africa (ECOWAS Court of Justice, 2009).

In Chief Ebrimah Manneh v. The Republic of The Gambia (2008), the Court declared that the Gambian government was responsible for the illegal arrest and disappearance of journalist Ebrima Manneh, further entrenching the Court’s role as a bulwark against the state’s repression (ECOWAS Court of Justice, 2008). Similarly, in the case of Kebba K. Barrow & 3 Others v. The Republic of The Gambia (2014), the Court decided in favour of political detainees, affirming their liberty and right to fair trial both by ECOWAS standards and international law (ECOWAS Court of Justice, 2014).

Despite all these developments via the judiciary, enforcement remains poor. Nigeria withdrew its consent to the jurisdiction of the Court in human rights cases on grounds of national sovereignty and judicial overreach in 2019 (Vines, 2021). This is a reflection of the tension between state sovereignty and regional power, a simple bar to ECOWAS integration endeavours.

Domestication of ECOWAS Legal Instruments and Compliance

The degree of compliance and domestication of ECOWAS judicial rulings and protocols varies significantly across member states, which depends on variations in institutional systems, economic capacity, political will, and national judicial traditions. Ghana records the highest general compliance with ECOWAS protocols at 78%, reflecting high governance systems and institution commitment, which ensures high recognition of regional legal instruments (ECOWAS Compliance Monitoring Report, 2023). Senegal closely trails at 72% compliance, signalling a similarly high level of commitment to ECOWAS requirements.

By comparison, Nigeria’s overall level of compliance is 58%, but a significant divergence occurs when looking at judicial decisions per se, where enforcement plummets to 32%. This delay points to challenges in the domestication of regional court judgments into the local legal system, possibly due to complex federal structures, overlapping legal jurisdictions, or political agendas (Adeoye, 2022; ECOWAS Commission, 2023). The Gambia, however, presents a far lower compliance rate of 34% and signals structural and political barriers to the successful domestication of ECOWAS instruments (Jallow, 2021).

These divergences underscore the key role of national political will and legal traditions as opposed to economic and institutional capacity. While economic resources provide requisite aid in implementation, political elites’ commitment and alignment of national legal systems with the regional schemes are what ultimately enable ECOWAS to be effective in actualising legal harmonisation and regional integration (Fasokun, 2020; Mensah, 2019). The asymmetric domestication of ECOWAS legislation is a sizeable challenge for regional regulation and supranational decision enforcement, undermining the community’s capacity to build legal solidarity and collective development.

Figure 2. ECOWAS Protocol and Ruling Compliance Rates (2023) by the author data from the ECOWAS Compliance Monitoring Report 2023. ECOWAS Publications.

Case Studies

Ghana: The Hybrid Model of Integration and Compliance

Ghana is at the regional forefront in terms of domestication and implementation of ECOWAS protocols, with a compliance rate of approximately 78% (ECOWAS Compliance Monitoring Report, 2023). Such success is based on a hybrid model of governance and law that blends official state structures with customary institutions to facilitate easier implementation of regional standards.

Ghana’s judiciary remains central to the enforcement of ECOWAS decisions. Courts have increasingly cited ECOWAS Community laws, and the Ghanaian bench has shown willingness to enforce supranational rulings, hence consolidating the rule of law within the ECOWAS enclave (Amoah, 2021). The capacity of the judiciary is enhanced by continuous training programs designed to enhance comprehension of regional legal instruments.

The uniqueness lies in blending customary courts with formal tribunals, primarily in land and property disputes (Boafo-Arthur, 2019). The hybrid framework minimises tensions that are likely to lead to investment and infrastructure work delays and enhances compliance with local property rights standards. By formalising recognition of traditional leaders, Ghana manages to bridge the gap between modern state governance and grassroots-level legitimacy.

Ghana boasts vibrant civil society organisations that are actively engaged in regional activism and government compliance monitoring with ECOWAS standards (Gyimah-Boadi, 2020). They also facilitate public awareness activities that increase the knowledge of citizens about their rights under ECOWAS treaties, thereby fostering bottom-up accountability.

Despite these strengths, Ghana remains afflicted by long-standing challenges. Corruption in public procurement is a chronic barrier to full ECOWAS transparency and governance standards compliance (Transparency International, 2023). Additionally, delays in contract enforcement and administrative inefficiency still dissuade investor confidence, perhaps limiting economic returns from regional integration.

The Gambia: Fragility and Reform in the Wake of Political Transition

The Gambia is a reverse example case in that the country has institutional weakness, but also nascent reforming tendencies. Following President Adama Barrow’s election in 2017, the nation has made significant efforts towards alignment with ECOWAS standards, for example, by ratifying the Revised ECOWAS Treaty and creating a National Human Rights Commission (Jallow, 2021).

Low Compliance and Institutional Capacity: Regardless of reform goals, regional protocol compliance in The Gambia remains low at a level of about 34% (ECOWAS Commission, 2023). The judiciary remains inadequately resourced, weakly independent, and unsensitized to regional law, which will obviate effective enforcement of ECOWAS judgments. Further, administrative hurdles and insecure land titling systems provide meaningful obstacles to both domestic investors and foreign direct investment.

Identifying the challenges above, the Government of The Gambia has embarked on an ambitious e-Government Master Plan to digitalise land records, automate business registration, and enhance the delivery of public services by 2025 (Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure, The Gambia, 2022). This digitalisation offers a vital chance to improve transparency, lower corruption, and ensure better integration with ECOWAS regulatory standards.

The current political transition also conditions reform opportunities. Although the government of President Barrow has expressed political will to deepen governance, pervasive patronage networks and fiscal resource limitations are limitations on swift institutional change (Sanyang, 2022). Therefore, The Gambia’s trajectory toward increased regional integration is incremental and based on continued international assistance and domestic reforms.

Nigeria: Power, Resistance, and the Complexity of Federalism

Nigeria, the largest economy in West Africa, wields considerable influence in ECOWAS and contributes approximately 70% of the bloc’s budget and dominates peacekeeping and regional security missions (ECOWAS Commission, 2023). Its attitude towards ECOWAS legal instruments is nevertheless twofold and marked by selective enforcement.

Interestingly, Nigeria also excluded itself from the jurisdiction of the ECOWAS Court of Justice in 2016 on the grounds of sovereignty and judicial encroachment (Umar, 2020). This development disempowers the court and marks Nigeria’s hesitancy to completely succumb to regional judicial verdicts, which makes legal harmonisation at the larger West African level more challenging.

Nigeria has not fully domesticated key protocols such as the Common Investment Code, limiting regional business integration. Moreover, despite ECOWAS’s Free Movement Protocol, Nigeria continues to impose visa restrictions on citizens from other member states, reflecting domestic security concerns and protectionist policies (Ojo, 2021).

The federal system of the nation complicates further implementation. The states enjoy a lot of autonomy in regulating investment and commerce. For example, Lagos State has introduced business-friendly reforms that have enhanced its investment environment, while most northern states trail behind because of political instability and low governance capacity (Adebayo, 2022).

Amid these systemic challenges, grassroots movements such as #EndSARS, which protested police brutality and called for governance reforms, highlight growing youth activism demanding transparency and accountability (Nwankwo, 2021). Digital platforms like BudgIT leverage data to push for budgetary openness, signalling an emerging bottom-up force for change that may eventually influence Nigeria’s engagement with ECOWAS integration.

Senegal: OHADA Membership and Regional Leadership

Senegal actively fosters leadership in the harmonisation of West African legal instruments as it engages with the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). By passing the Acte Uniforme sur les Sociétés et Groupements, OHADA, 2020 has brought about further simplification of company registration processes and contract enforcement, by easing regional economic integration (Diop, 2021).

Senegal’s 72% compliance level with ECOWAS protocols demonstrates the strength of its institutional frameworks and political commitment towards regional integration (ECOWAS Compliance Monitoring Report, 2023). Its hosting of the ECOWAS Parliament and support for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) also highlight Senegal’s position as a regional hub.

However, concerns remain regarding the executive’s influence over the judiciary and restrictions on civic space, particularly evident during the 2024 electoral period (Diallo, 2024). Reports of curbed protests and limitations on opposition activities raise alarms about potential democratic backsliding, which could jeopardise the legitimacy and sustainability of Senegal’s regional leadership (Human Rights Watch, 2024).

Policy Recommendations

Drawing from the comparative analysis of compliance patterns, governance capacities, and institutional innovations in ECOWAS member states, this study makes three transformative policy recommendations. These recommendations are designed to bridge the implementation gap, enhance citizen engagement, and embed sustainability into the regional governance system. They are framed not merely as reforms but as systemic transformations to position ECOWAS as a 21st-century institution responsive to digital, demographic, and environmental imperatives.

ECOWAS Digital Transformation Fund (EDTF)

The West African digital divide continues to undermine the effective domestication and implementation of ECOWAS protocols. Disconnected bureaucratic systems, paper-based judicial processes, and inefficient land registries create opacity, inefficiencies, and corruption (UNECA, 2022). This paper proposes filling these gaps by establishing a $1 billion ECOWAS Digital Transformation Fund (EDTF) to accelerate the digitisation of public services in member countries.

Scope and Objectives

• Online Business Registration to enable intra-regional trade and enforcement of the ECOWAS Investment Code.
• E-filing of Court Cases and Virtual Hearings to improve access to justice and enforcement of ECOWAS Court judgments.
• Blockchain-based Land Titling Systems to reduce fraud, improve investor confidence, and resolve land disputes.
• Integrated Digital Identity Systems to enable secure, cross-border services and mobility under the Free Movement Protocol.

Funding Mechanism

The fund would be financed through a 1% levy on regional digital transactions and would be augmented by technical assistance and co-funding from the African Union Digital Transformation Strategy (AU-DTS), the World Bank’s Digital Economy Initiative for Africa (DE4A), and collaborations with the private sector.

The program aligns with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) digital priorities and would also standardise data governance policies in ECOWAS (UNECA & AU, 2022).

Youth Advisory Councils (EYAC)

Since over 60% of West Africa’s population is aged under 35 years, the democratic legitimacy and long-term sustainability of regional integration hinge on substantive youth inclusion (AfDB, 2023). Current ECOWAS arrangements, however, offer limited formal space for youth voices in policy formulation and implementation.

To address this gap, this study proposes the creation of ECOWAS Youth Advisory Councils (EYAC) in all member states. These decentralised bodies, composed of youths aged 15–35 years from different sectors, technology, creative industries, law, agriculture, and environmental justice, would serve as permanent consultative organs to national ECOWAS liaison offices and the Commission itself.

Mandates

• Policy Consultation: Provide input on draft ECOWAS instruments and advise on youth-focused governance and economic policies.
• Protocol Monitoring: Track regional instrument implementation in mobility, education, entrepreneurship, and digital rights.
• Annual Afrofuturist Governance Summits: Organise regional summits on youth-driven innovations in democracy, urbanisation, and digital sovereignty.

Such councils would not only foster intergenerational justice but also facilitate the institutionalisation of youth-responsive governance, which is in alignment with Agenda 2063 and the African Youth Charter (African Union, 2006). The model draws inspiration from best practices of the AU Youth Envoy Office, the European Youth Forum, and Gambia’s National Youth Council.

Establishment of a Regional Climate Justice Court

The Sahel and West African region faces disproportionate exposure to climate risks, including desertification, coastal erosion, floods, and biodiversity loss, while legal arrangements at the regional level remain underdeveloped in addressing environmental justice (IPCC, 2022). In reaction to this legal gap, this paper proposes the creation of a Regional Climate Justice Court (RCJC) under the auspices of ECOWAS.

Core Functions

• Adjudication of Transboundary Environmental Disputes, i.e., oil spillage in the Niger Delta, illegal deforestation in Guinean forests, or pollution of shared water basins.
• Enforcement of Climate Commitments, i.e., under the Paris Agreement and the ECOWAS Environmental Action Plan (2015–2025).
• Integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into environmental jurisprudence, promoting inclusive and decolonial forms of climate governance.

The court would have jurisdictional complementarity to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and could be established via a protocol modelled on the East African Court of Justice. The court would give binding force to regional environmental norms and enact the Abidjan Declaration on Climate Justice (2022), which calls for climate to be treated as an environmental and human rights issue.

The RCJC would also advance the right to a healthy environment, recently recognised by the UN General Assembly (Resolution 76/300), and offer a vital legal framework to support ECOWAS’s commitment to climate-resilient development pathways.

Summary Table of Recommendations

Table 3. By Author.

CONCLUSION

This study has found that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) integration project remains strongly shaped by enduring colonial legacies, primarily, modes of statism, legal dualism, and centralised authority. These structures remain to influence the manner in which member states react to regional legal instruments, bargain issues of sovereignty, and enforce supranational commitments. Regional integration within West Africa, thus, cannot be entirely accounted for or driven without invoking the postcolonial state’s historical roots.

Case studies identify divergence and convergence of regional compliance. Ghana and Senegal show that, where civic engagement, institutional vitality, and political will are in harmony, legal harmonisation and regional regulation on substance can be achieved. Their relatively high rates of compliance (78% and 72%, respectively) demonstrate that hybrid legal systems, OHADA-conformant reforms, and dynamic civil society sectors can sustain ECOWAS’ normative frameworks. By contrast, The Gambia and Nigeria uncover the political and structural constraints that erode ECOWAS’ jurisdiction. Institutional inertia, resource constraints, and post-authoritarian weakness impede total domestication of ECOWAS law in The Gambia. Nigeria, on the other hand, is a paradox: its economic and geopolitical dominance despite its reluctance to selectively accept supranational legal authority on grounds of sovereignty and federal complexity, an ambivalence that undermines the collective enforcement potential of ECOWAS.

But along with these contradictions, new horizons of regional solidarity are unfolding, above all through youth-led and digitally mediated activism. From the #EndSARS protests against police brutality in Nigeria to cross-border tech initiatives and platforms like BudgIT, these actors are remaking governance from below. They bypass traditional state-centred models and establish new circuits of accountability, openness to data, and civic mobilisation. This offers a glimpse of an epistemological rupture from colonial governance paradigms. It suggests that the regional integration’s next phase needs not just to change institutions but to rethink the very elementary logics upon which institutions are built.

This essay introduces an Afrofuturist Governance Framework as a vision-centred paradigm that places epistemic justice, digital sovereignty, and climate resilience at the centre of regionalism. This approach calls for a departure from technocratic integration models that copy Eurocentric institutional design and, instead, conform to West Africa’s population, cultural, and technological realities. It recognises that the legitimacy of ECOWAS does not only lie in its treaties and protocols but also in its ability to cultivate inclusive futures premised on African systems of knowledge, young people’s creativity, and planetary ethics.

Future Research Directions

The findings of this study open up several directions for future work:

• Diaspora Capital and Regional Integration: Future research must examine how remittances, diaspora business and transnational knowledge flows can be leveraged in order to improve regional investment frameworks and institutional change.
• Legal Harmonisation and Artificial Intelligence: With AI users increasingly engaged in legal research, case analysis, and compliance verification, researchers must explore how AI might harmonise ECOWAS legal texts and aid judicial training and guarantee considerations of issues of algorithmic bias and data sovereignty.

Lessons from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), East African Community (EAC), and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could offer significant lessons on compliance incentives, institutional design, and conflict resolution. Comparative analysis can push ECOWAS beyond its current limitations by learning from more responsive or functionally differentiated regional integration templates.

To sum up, decolonising colonial statism and regional solidarity is no linear progression. It is replete with contradictions, asymmetries, and contested sovereignties. But it is also replete with possibilities for transformation. If ECOWAS is ever to fulfil its original vision, it cannot merely build capacity; it must build imagination. In this way, the bloc is then able to shift from a bureaucratic organisation to a living political project, one that is a projection of the aspirations, imagination, and resilience of West African peoples in the 21st century.

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APPENDIX

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