Coups and Calculations: ECOWAS’s Battle for Authority and Trust

By Ephraim Agbo

The 68th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority in Abuja was never going to be a routine gathering. Against the backdrop of a failed mutiny in Cotonou and a junta trying to normalise rule in Bissau, the summit read like theatre staged to answer a question: can a once-proud regional project still enforce a political bargain while buying back popular legitimacy? What unfolded was less a policy meeting than a public performance of institutional survival — a two-track strategy that tries to wield targeted pressure against putschists while dangling immediate economic relief to citizens whose faith in regional institutions is fraying.

The short, urgent security docket turned on two different stress tests.

In Benin, a December attempt to seize power was repulsed by loyalist forces with critical external help; France publicly acknowledged providing logistical and intelligence support while Nigeria moved jets and troops to assist Cotonou. ECOWAS’s swift reflex—backing Benin and authorising a standby posture—was a deliberate demonstration that the bloc still intends to defend constitutional order when it can. But it was also an admission that the capacity to do so frequently rides on the willingness of one or two members to act beyond the bloc’s institutional reach.

Guinea-Bissau presented a more insidious problem: a military takeover that has quickly tried to predicate a transition timetable and a legal architecture to entrench its hold. ECOWAS’s public response — the firm rejection of the junta’s proposed timeline, threats of targeted sanctions against individual enablers, and the dispatch of high-level envoys — was less dramatic than the Benin spectacle but potentially more consequential. This is the kind of confrontation that will measure ECOWAS’s capacity for sustained leverage: can it combine diplomatic pressure, financial chokepoints and regional isolation in ways that force a reversal without provoking a humanitarian backlash?

What made Abuja’s approach noteworthy was the deliberate pairing of the coercive and the conciliatory: the scalpel of targeted sanctions on one hand; the balm of immediate, measurable economic policy on the other. The summit’s decision to abolish certain air transport taxes and reduce passenger and security charges from January 1, 2026 — framed as a “people-centred” bid to lower intra-regional travel costs — was not merely technocratic. It was political theatre aimed at producing a visible return on membership: cheaper tickets, more trade, and a tangible reminder that regional integration can deliver daily benefits. If implemented faithfully, the move attacks a real barrier to commerce and social exchange; if botched, it will be a vivid reminder of the gulf between ECOWAS rhetoric and lived reality.

Three structural tensions ran like fault lines beneath the summit’s polished rhetoric.

First, the Nigerian anchor. Abuja’s capacity—and growing reluctance—to act as the region’s security guarantor is a double-edged sword. Nigeria’s interventionism can prop up ECOWAS norms when member solidarity falters, but it also concentrates political and financial risk in one state. That concentration breeds domestic pushback and questions about burden-sharing that will shape future responses.

Second, the external gaze. The Benin episode exposed the awkward choreography between African institutions and outside powers. Support from former colonial states and other partners can be decisive in urgent moments, but it also feeds the narratives that juntas exploit: that resistance to coups is externally driven. ECOWAS must therefore calibrate partnerships so that assistance strengthens, rather than delegitimises, African agency.

Third, the implementation gap. Announcing the abolition of air transport taxes and a 25% cut in passenger/security charges is easy; ensuring national aviation authorities, cash-strapped airports and airlines follow through is much harder. The policy’s credibility will be decided not in Abuja’s conference halls but at national budget meetings and at airline ticket counters.

If the summit contained a coherent operational theory, it was simple: isolate and punish the architects of unconstitutional change while giving ordinary people a reason to see ECOWAS as useful. But that theory requires three practical proofs of life.

1. Named Targets, Not Abstract Threats. The immediate publication and enforcement of a sanctions list for Guinea-Bissau will be the clearest signal that the bloc is prepared to convert rhetoric into pressure. Vague threats calcify into irrelevance unless followed by prosecutable, monitorable measures.
2. A January Test-Case. The promised airfare reforms carry an unavoidable deadline: 1 January 2026. If charges are not reduced in fare calculations, or states backtrack citing revenue shortfalls, the policy will become a symbol of performative governance rather than a confidence-building measure.
3. From Standby to Ready. The standby force must progress from a declaratory concept to a force with clear rules of engagement, logistics chains and a shared financing mechanism. Without operational clarity, the “standby” risk remains rhetorical theatre.

The political economy of compliance will be the crucible. Sanctions that bite the assets and travel of junta leaders will be effective only if neighbouring states, banks and commercial actors play along. Airfare reductions will matter only if ministries of finance, civil aviation authorities and airlines accept short-term revenue adjustments for long-term gain. The technical mechanics are less glamorous than summit communiqués, but they are where credibility is made or lost.

Finally, the summit underscored an existential dilemma for ECOWAS: legitimacy cannot be declared; it must be earned in two registers simultaneously. It must be punitive enough to deter would-be putschists, yet distributive enough to show citizens a reason to value the umbrella the bloc offers. That is a narrow path — one littered with institutional weaknesses and political contradictions. Fail on either front, and ECOWAS risks sliding from being a convening authority to a ceremonial body whose pronouncements are greeted with indifference.

Abuja did not settle the region’s crises. It did, however, restate a strategic posture: mix calibrated coercion with visible, fast-payoff economic reform. The months ahead will show whether this is tactical ingenuity or simply the last convenient script for an organisation struggling to reconcile power and persuasion. For now, ECOWAS has bought itself a lease on relevance — not a guarantee of survival. The hard work of implementation begins the day after the photo-ops.