According to Ambassador Baba Gana Wakil, Resident Representative of ECOWAS in Ghana, ECOWAS is now focusing on bringing development to the doorsteps of its people, particularly those in rural communities in the fifteen sister countries.

He stated that ECOWAS would no longer be seen as it is today, with the leadership of those sister countries only attending meetings and seminars without considering the needs of their people.

To that end, the ECOWAS secretariat is putting in place measures to build more mechanised boreholes for people in rural communities who are experiencing extremely high water stress in ECOWAS communities.

Ambassador Baba Gana Wakil was speaking to journalists during the commissioning of a mechanised borehole built by the ECOWAS administration for the people of Odikro Nkwanta in Ashanti region’s Ahafo Ano North Municipality.

He said people know about ECOWAS only when heads of member countries carry their aircraft into Accra and then they disturb the traffic. They go and meet in five-star hotels, have nice talks, and when they are going back, they disturb the traffic again. But ECOWAS is not about that. Actually, ECOWAS is about the people. When we said the people of ECOWAS, we meant all the 15 countries in this subregion constitute what we call ECOWAS community citizens. It is the new focus of ECOWAS to bring development to the doorsteps of local communities, who actually own the regional organisation.”

He asserted that the leaders who meet in these luxurious hotels are only representing the people, ”and our vision is the transformation from the ECOWAS of the state to the ECOWAS of the people with peace and prosperity for all. So it is not a surprise that we are in the local community of Odikro Nkwanta. It is in line with our new focus of bringing development to the grassroots, and we will continue to do that subject to our resources”.

Nana Agyemang Prempeh, Director General of the National Disaster Management Organisation, NADMO, who lobbied for the project, stated that the people of Odikro Nkwanta have been facing an extremely high water crisis for more than two decades, and he saw the need to collaborate with ECOWAS to bring relief to the people.

The Chief of Odikro Nkwanta, Ohenenana, and his subjects thanked ECOWAS and the NADMO director for the tremendous relief.