Abuja - Nigeria — The President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency Kadre Desire Ouedraogo has praised the government of the United Kingdom for its contributions to the success of West Africa's integration project including its ongoing training assistance to the armed forces of Mali to bolster their capacity to discharge their mandate.
The commendation came on Thursday, 4th April 2013 during the accreditation of His Excellency, Dr. Andrew John Pocock, the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Nigeria as the Kingdom's representative to ECOWAS at a brief ceremony at the Commission headquarters.
The president also used the opportunity to reiterate the validity of the ECOWAS integration project and briefed the envoy on the successes that have been achieved in the areas of the harmonization of trade and other policies, the development of regional infrastructure to improve intra community trade and the movement of community citizens in the spirit of the objectives of the organisation's founding fathers.
"There has been tremendous progress with the implementation of the regional protocol on the free movement of citizens resulting in a greater sense of community citizenship as well as the development of telecommunications which has eased intra community communication," the president told his guest.
While the president acknowledged some challenges to regional integration, he spoke glowingly of the successes that have been achieved. " Our objective is to ultimately unite the region through various mechanisms," the president told the envoy, using the opportunity to solicit UK support for the ongoing effort to transform the African led force in Mali into a UN mission.
In order to address the challenges of maritime security, the president said a two day summit of the leaders of West and Central Africa will be held from 18th May 2013 in Yaounde, Cameroun to agree a joint strategy to combat the scourge of piracy in the two regions. Responding, Dr. Pocock, who recently assumed duties in Nigeria, reiterated his country's commitment to work with ECOWAS to realize the objectives of its founding fathers.
