Ouagadougou, February 15, 2020. A high level Ministerial Meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held today, 15th February, 2019 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The Ministers responsible for ECOWAS Affairs, Finance and Trade from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo met to assess the situation of the closure of land borders of Nigeria to goods, pursue the overall objective to reach an acceptable solution by all parties and propose actions for the rapid reopening of the land borders of Nigeria for the free movement of goods.

General Salou Djibo, Chairman of the Task Force on the Free Movement of Persons and Goods in his remarks at the opening ceremony stressed that the meeting which is to assess the situation of the closure of Nigeria’s land borders to goods and arrive at a solution.

In his opening remarks, H.E. Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, President of the ECOWAS Commission, highlighted the importance of free movement of people and goods as the glue and foundation of any regional integration process. Which he says continues to be one of the major achievements of the ECOWAS integration process.
President Brou stressed that free movement of people and goods is key to the realisation of the ECOWAS common market and the realisation of the vision of ‘ECOWAS of Peoples’, he urged participants to maintain the spirit of solidarity and come up with a solution.

H.E. Roch Marc Christian Kabore, President of Burkina Faso and the Champion of Free Movement of ECOWAS, whose speech was read by Paul Robert Tiendrebeogo, Minister of African Integration and Burkinabe Abroad, underscored the vision of the founding fathers of ECOWAS to make West Africa economically strong, fully integrated without barriers or borders.

After deliberations at the meeting, the Ministers arrived at some recommendations, which they presented to the Champion of Free Movement of ECOWAS, H.E. Roch Marc Christian Kabore at the Presidency in Ouagadougou.