Nigeria, ECOWAS and the Morocco question by Reuben Abati I was in Morocco recently, about 20 years after I last visited Timbuktu, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat and Laayoune. I was quite impressed to see how Morocco with its colour-coded cities remains very much an organized, efficient and a comparatively competitive country.

The trip this time began from the Lagos airport aboard the Royal Air Maroc, which now plies the Lagos-Casablanca route. Twenty years earlier, I had to go first to Paris, France, change from one airport to the other, before boarding another flight to Morocco. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI This crisis of transportation, having to go to Europe before accessing African countries, poses a major threat to trade, co-operation and integration among African countries.

This time around, Lagos to Casablanca took no more than 4 hours. The flight was full; the passengers were mostly Nigerians. I would later discover that these passengers were not necessarily going to Morocco to attend the Crans Montana conference on Africa and South-South Co-operation taking place in Dhakla, they were transit passengers going to New York or Europe. Casablanca to New York is about 6 hours, and the cost of travel either to the US or Europe through Morocco is much cheaper. The Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and Morocco has brought both countries closer, with many Nigerian businessmen taking advantage of the opportunity to trade with Morocco. Many Nigerian students are also now going to school in Moroccan universities and technical colleges. As I took in these details, and reflected on the vast possibilities of closer Nigeria-Morocco relations, what struck me as I left Casablanca for Rabat, was not even the beauty of the roads and the skyline, or the meaty, physically majestic cattle that grazed on the fields along the highway, not disturbing motorists or crossing the road, or causing any violence, unlike Nigerian cattle and their herders, but the fact that it is this same Morocco, with its near-First-World standards, that has been struggling since early 2017 to be admitted as a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Nigerian trade unions, business investors and some former diplomats have been in the forefront of the objection to Morocco’s membership of ECOWAS.

The reasons they offer are largely sentimental, not fact-based, not informed, all made worse by what seems to be a continuing lack of rigour in the management of Nigeria’s foreign policy process. In January 2017, Morocco returned to the African Union (AU) after 33 years of absence. Under King Mohammed VI of Morocco, there has been in the last seven years or so, a concerted diplomatic effort to assert Morocco’s Africanism and to reach out to other African countries outside North Africa. Morocco’s issue with Algeria, the crisis in Libya, and the conflict of objectives and goals among the members of the African Maghreb Union (UMA) perhaps makes this re-strategizing of Morocco’s foreign policy pragmatic and inevitable.

Having returned to the AU, Morocco took the additional step of seeking the membership of ECOWAS. In June 2017, at the 51st meeting of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government held in Monrovia, Liberia, ECOWAS agreed in principle to Morocco’s application for membership. The ECOWAS Commission then put a team together to prepare an Impact Report on Morocco’s proposed membership to be considered at the 52nd meeting of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government scheduled for November 2017 in Abuja, Nigeria. As it turned out, ECOWAS could not consider the 70-page Report as scheduled, due to its busy agenda, as was claimed, but a committee of five comprising the Heads of State of Togo, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria was empaneled to study the Report and advise the ECOWAS Heads of State and Governments accordingly.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/03/963127/

I support Morrocco joining the ECOWAS..

The bigger the merrier...

..abi no be so?

Good Report.

Morrocco is prepared, that's why she didn't like GEJ

Buhari always scared, what will morocco joining ECOWAS get to do with Nigeria Economic?

Let me ask the OP.. is it a bad thing for nigeria to disintegrate? A country that has never worked. It was after korea disintegrated that south korea started progressing. Irish republic started progressing when they left u.k.

What are u one nigerianist gaining from nigeria?

Op stop giving wrong title to ya post, there is no connection between Nigeria and Moroco infact morroco joining the ecowas will be a big plus to Nigeria ad will benefit her richly in economic relationship, and a plus for me because I wouldn't need a visa to travel to morroco anymore as my international passport will all that is required, I never visited Moroco before but i am considering it now,

How is Nigeria unity fairing? Whether this useless hellhole disintegrate or not is none of my business