ECOWAS and the Challenges of the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and Goods on Nigeria’s National Security in the 21st Century

Abstract

This paper examined the ECOWAS and the challenges of the protocol on free movement of persons and goods on Nigeria’s national security in the 21^st century. ECOWAS was established on May 25, 1975 to boost regional economic integrative effort of countries within the African sub region. Efforts have continued to be made by leaders and stakeholders on the ECOWAS project in arresting the bottlenecks hindering the realization of the objectives of the regional organization. Obviously, the full implementation of the protocol by all the member countries of ECOWAS has remained problematic due to a good number of factors. Theoretically, this paper is anchored on the theory of intergovernmentalism. Methodologically, this paper relied on secondary means of data collection. The content method was adopted in the analysis. The paper discovered that the implementation of the protocol on free movement of persons and goods by Nigeria to a considerable extent has been impacting negatively on her national security. The paper recommends the computerization of the common borders of member countries of ECOWAS for effective data sharing system.