By Olukayode Idowu
President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Jean-Claude Brou has said member states are winning the war against maritime insecurity.
Brou who said the attestation to this was the removal of Nigeria from the piracy list hotspot, noted that strategies are in place to equally win the war on terrorism
Brou stated this on Tuesday while delivering reports of the ECOWAS Commission before the ECOWAS Parliament during the ongoing 2022 First Ordinary Session of the Parliament in Abuja.
He argued that the victory against maritime insecurity can also be seen with the decreasing rate of attack in the Gulf of Guinea following actions by member countries.
He said: “A year ago, I told you that the maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea was extremely disturbing and globally we were the zone having the largest number of maritime piracy attacks.
“Actions have been carried by the countries individually but also at the level of regional coordination.”
He noted that this situation has reduced slightly to the point that Nigeria has come out of the list of countries having a high level of maritime piracy, adding that: “We will continue to work at regional level with the inauguration of our Regional Coordination Centres for Maritime Security that has been set up in the various zones.”
He said all together they are working actively particularly in zone F in Cape Verde.
Brou insisted that implementation of a Regional Action Plan remains a high level priority and resource mobilization remains key, while however expressing concern over the spate of terrorism in some countries which has led to humanitarian crises in the affected countries.
The ECOWAS Commission’s President said that just like how maritime insecurity was addressed, early warning mechanisms among other initiatives would be emplaced to tackle the menace of terrorism.
He said: “Obviously, the fight against terrorism is a priority and it is being implemented.
“It comes to strengthen the various actions carried out in the various countries above all it comes to fight insecurity.
“We have the Accra initiative, the G5 initiative, the Sahel initiative. The security situation as well as the food production crises create an unprecedent humanitarian rises in the region.
“In 2021, the number of Internally Displaced Persons in the region went from 4.4 million to 5.5 million, so there is a large increase in the numbers of IDPs.
“So this shows the extent of the crises facing our region because of the double burden of security and food production.
“We continue to deploy our early warnings centers. Eight have been installed out of 15 and we hope to set up the remaining seven at the end of this year,” Brou said.
The 2022 First Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament which began on June 9 and expected to draw to a close on July 2 is seeking to deliberate on draft community regulations emanating from the Commission.
Other agenda that would be discussed includes; examining community strategies targeted at improving governance, address issues of unconstitutional change of governance, insecurity, and proffer solutions towards democratic consolidation in the sub-region.