No Evidence Liberia Exchanged ECOWAS Chairmanship for UN Security Council Seat

In Summary:

• A critic of the government claims on Facebook that Liberia exchanged the ECOWAS Chairmanship in return for a UN Security Council seat in July 2023
• He asserted that Liberia ceded its interest to Nigeria in exchange for the UNSC seat
• We have checked for credible information to verify this assertion but found no evidence that supports this claim.

Aloysius Howe, special assistant to former Finance Minister Samuel Tweh Jr., has claimed in a Facebook post that Liberia surrendered the ECOWAS Chairmanship to Nigeria in exchange for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council during the sitting of the regional bloc held in Guinea-Bissau in July 2023.

Howe made this claim on June 3, following Liberia’s election as a non-permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations in New York.

Liberia received 181 votes out of the 188 member states that participated in the election – securing its seat in just one round of balloting.

The Claim

Howe wrote to Facebook: “Liberia exchanged the ECOWAS Chairmanship for the Non-permanent seat (UNSC) in Guinea Bissau in July 2023 to Nigeria.”

Rating Justification

To verify this claim, we contacted Mr. Howe, requesting the source of his information. He did not respond to our inquiry up to the time of the publication of this report. If he does so with new information, we will update this report.

We then searched the internet and found the FINAL COMMUNIQUE of the Sixty-Third (63rd) Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), held on July 9, 2023, in Bissau, Republic of Guinea-Bissau.

Published on the official website of ECOWAS, the Final Communiqué of ECOWAS is the official statement issued at the end of a summit or high-level meeting of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government. It outlines the main decisions, declarations, resolutions, and policy directions agreed upon during the meeting.

In this Final Communique, we found no evidence that Liberia exchanged the ECOWAS Chairmanship for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council with Nigeria.

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At the 63rd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected as the new Chairperson of ECOWAS, succeeding Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló. This leadership change is ECOWAS’ standard annual rotation.

During the same summit, ECOWAS unanimously endorsed Liberia’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2026–2027 term. Guinea-Bissau was also endorsed for the UNSC seat.

This endorsement was based on Liberia’s expressed interest and its commitment to democratic governance and regional stability, according to the Communique.

Conclusion

Based on a review of the ECOWAS 63^rd Final Communique, we conclude that the claim made by Aloysius Howe that Liberia “exchanged the ECOWAS Chairmanship to Nigeria” for the Non-permanent seat of the UN Security Council in July 2023 during the ECOWAS meeting in Guinea-Bissau is unproven.

We have found no evidence to back this claim.

It is important to note that Liberia’s endorsement for the UN Security Council seat and Nigeria’s assumption of the ECOWAS Chairmanship during the 63^rd Ordinary Session of the Authority of ECOWAS States and Governments were independent decisions made by ECOWAS member states, not due to an exchange between the two countries.