West Africa And The Challenges Of Regional Integration: Lessons From The Brexit

The study examined regional integration in West Africa: lessons from the Brexit experience. The notion that deeper regional integration in the West African sub-region can bring lasting development and stability to the region has become a staple idea shared by many regionalists and scholars. The success of the European Union tends to give credence to this notion. Despite the success recorded by the EU, Britain a strong member left the Union. The major assumption of this study is that there are some veritable lessons that a sub-regional organization like ECOWAS can learn from the European integration and Brexit in its effort to achieve deeper integration. The study adopted functionalism as the theoretical framework. The study employed a secondary method of data collection and a qualitative descriptive analysis method was used to conclude the relations between variables. Findings from the study revealed that factors like corruption, armed conflicts, colonial experience, language barrier, and debt crisis in the region have hindered both development and integration in the West African sub-region. The study also showed that ECOWAS has a lesson to learn from the concerns raised by Britons which made Britain leave the EU. The factors that necessitated Brexit include the issue of unabated mass migration into the union, over assertiveness of Germany, insecurity, loss of border control and sovereignty, and economic hardship. The study recommended that ECOWAS should endeavour to arrest the challenges that have hindered its development and integration before considering deeper integration. This is because the current condition of the region may not favour deeper integration. It must among other things fashion out means to curb the poverty in the region so that the community will not be a mere conglomeration of weak nations in alliance.