Nigeria and ECOWAS: Moving Towards Actualizing Economic Integration?
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Date
2018
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Publisher
Nigerian Journal of International Affairs
Abstract
This paper critically analyses Nigeria’s participation in ensuring the materialization of the economic
integration objective of the ECOWAS against the backdrop of its hegemonic stance within the
region. Nigeria championed the realization of the regional economic body in 1975; however, its
political activities in the areas of conflict resolution, counter-terrorism and good governance in
recent years have gained huge scholarly attention whereas the knowledge of the pursuance of its
1975 ECOWAS goals is quite scanty. This paper argues, based on both primary and secondary data
that despite its significant shift to humanitarian and governance issues, Nigeria has been active in
fulfilling the tenets of the 1975 ECOWAS treaty, though several challenges, both external and
internal, hinder the fulfilment of such economic integration and development in the region. This
paper reveals that these challenges, to a great extent, undermine Nigeria’s hegemonic role and its
economic initiatives. It concludes that Nigeria’s role in ECOWAS is critical to the economic stability
of the region and thus should be consolidated regardless her internal limitations