According to him, admitting Morocco would be counter-productive to ECOWAS’ main objective of promoting the economic development of member states and raising citizens’ standard of living in the West African sub-region.

Falana argued that Morocco’s main agendum for wanting to join ECOWAS was so that it could help member states of the European Union to flood the West African sub-region market with manufactured goods from Europe, thereby destroying the young industries in West Africa.

This, he said, was the EU’s new ploy, after being frustrated in its attempt to re-colonise the West African states.

A statement on Wednesday quoted Falana as saying this in a paper titled, “Deploying the ECOWAS legal architecture for addressing impunity in West African sub-region.”

The lawyer reportedly presented the paper at the multi-stakeholders consultative meeting on “Strengthening the ECOWAS Court of Justice and Enhancing Access to Justice in the West African Sub-region.”

He argued that there is hardly anything that ECOWAS member states would benefit from Morocco’s membership.

He said, “Despite the so-called Morocco’s strong ties with ECOWAS member states, trade between them remains low as it is less than $1bn a year. This is insignificant, as West Africa has a GDP of $345bn. Even then, the volume of trade is expected to reduce as some of the trade agreements between Morocco and ECOWAS member states are illegal to the extent that they relate to the mineral resources in Western Sahara.

“Both the European Court and the High Court in South Africa have ruled that Morocco lacks the legal capacity to mine the mineral resources in the territory of Western Sahara.

“Through the cancellation of tariffs the neo-colonial economic agenda is designed to allow the industrialised members of the European Union to flood the region with manufacture goods and thereby destroy the infantile industries in the member states of ECOWAS.” – Punch