Executive Director of the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE), Mutaru Muqthur has said that the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) approach to resolving military takeovers is wrong.

According to him, the issues behind the coups have been persistent for a while therefore ECOWAS should have been proactive in dealing with the military takeovers.

“I think that overall we are tackling the problem the wrong way,” he said on Sunday.

This comes after ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso from all activities of the Community following the toppling of the government of President Roch Marc Christian Kabore last Monday by the military.

The Bloc has also demanded the immediate release of President Kabore and all other political detainees and asked the military to restore constitutional order speedily.

ECOWAS gave the directive after an emergency virtual extraordinary summit held on Friday by regional leaders to deliberate on the political situation in that country.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Probe on Sunday, Mr Muqthur stated that the ECOWAS response to the coups in West Africa is dysfunctional.

According to him, it is high time “ECOWAS and those stakeholders agree ECOWAS is not properly tooled to deal with this.”

He said the coups happening in Ghana’s neighbouring countries are a result of issues of governance coupled with youth unemployment.

He added that the first coup that happened in Mali is evident of unemployment.

He also noted that the challenge of violent extremism “is largely a product or manifestation of the frustrations, the anger of citizens who have lost faith in their states and leaders’ capacity to provide them the entitlements of citizenship.”