ECOWAS: Withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso & Niger from African Bloc Kills Algeria-Nigeria Pipeline Project

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), dealing a hard blow to France and the Algerian regime which is serving the agenda of the former French colonial power in the region.

In a joint statement released Sunday, the three Sahel countries said they took a “sovereign decision” of quitting the regional bloc after it “drifted away from the ideals of its founding fathers and the spirit of Pan-Africanism.”

The military rulers of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger said ECOWAS “under the influence of foreign powers has betrayed its founding principles, becoming a threat to member states and peoples.”
They accused the regional economic bloc, set up in 1975, of failing to help them address insecurity and jihadist terror, while imposing “illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible sanctions”.

The three countries had already been suspended from ECOWAS after military coups took place in Niger in July 2023, Burkina Faso in 2022, and Mali in 2020.

According to some experts, their withdrawal from the regional bloc buries once for all the Algeria-Nigeria gas pipeline project, while the Moroccan-Nigerian project is gaining momentum driven by the African Atlantic cooperation project spearheaded by King Mohammed VI.

Within the frame of South-South solidarity-based cooperation, the Moroccan Sovereign has launched lately an international initiative to enable Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger) to have access to the Atlantic Ocean, a project that will transform the economies of these landlocked countries and the entire region.

These combined projects show Morocco’s leadership in driving geostrategic changes in Africa for shared prosperity, co-development, regional peace and stability.