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President Bola Tinubu and leaders of ECOWAS countries are currently meeting in Abuja.
The 68th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government is taking place at the State House Conference Centre, in Abuja.
Leaders of West African countries at the meeting include President Julius Bio (Sierra Leone, ECOWAS Chair), President Patrice Talon (Benin), José Maria Neves (Cabo Verde) and Alassane Ouattara (Côte d’Ivoire).
Others are Adama Barrow (The Gambia), John Mahama (Ghana), Umaro Embaló (Guinea-Bissau), Joseph Boakai (Liberia), Bassirou Faye (Senegal) and Faure Gnassingbé (Togo).
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The meeting is coming against the backdrop of five turbulent years for West Africa, which saw coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Burkina Faso (twice in 2022), and Niger (2023).
The latest incidents include an attempted coup in Benin on December 7, 2025, and renewed instability in Guinea-Bissau.
The decision taken in Abuja on Sunday at the 68th Ordinary Session of the Authority of ECOWAS leaders followed a series of successful military takeovers in the Sahel, with the bloc shifting from reactive sanctions to preemptive military and diplomatic intervention.
The most concrete evidence of a united front was the rapid response to stop the coup in the Republic of Benin on 7 December 2025, when, within hours of soldiers seizing the national broadcaster in Cotonou, President Bola Tinubu deployed Nigerian fighter jets and ground troops to support loyalist forces.
Immediate past Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, President Tinubu of Nigeria; the current Chairman, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, and President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Touray, among others, who spoke at the 68th ordinary session hosted by Nigeria, maintained that a united front and solidarity are the way to go in order to halt military takeovers and violent extremism in the region.
