THE ROLE OF NIGERIA IN THE ECOWAS AND ITS SUPPORT TOWARDS THE COMMON PROPOSED CURRENCY ECO

Abstract

Nigeria is the arrowhead of the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS), which was emerged in Lagos on May 28, 1975, as a regional institution consisting of fifteen nations. The essence of the establishment is to integrate the region into the single economic bloc and to ensure sole currency existence, which has been on the agenda of the head of the state conference. The study adopted regional integration theory and employed Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) in order to elaborate on the big-brother and sub-regional leader role of Nigeria in the region. The study found that loyalty to colonialism and the francophone country's long-existing monetary cooperation towards France was the strong blockade of the proposal as well as the member state was unable to reach-up to the merging criteria, which resulted in the shift and delays on the establishment of the common currency date. It was also discovered that on the efforts to embark on the process, two fast track approaches were being agreed upon towards the realization of the common currency. The first track meeting was held in Accra, Ghana, in April 2000, proposing that the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) were to create a second Monetary Union by July 2005 termed the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), mainly comprising of Anglophone countries. The second track was stressing on the consequent merging of the WAMZ and WAEMU to form a common currency union in the region. The study went further to provide some suggestions toward the implementation of the common currency in the region. Keywords: Nigeria, ECOWAS, Single Currency, Regional Leader.