President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been elected the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
He was elected at the 63rd ordinary session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government in Bissau, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.
Tinubu is the eighth Nigerian leader to be elected chairman of ECOWAS — Buhari headed the bloc twice, as military head of state and then as a democratic president.
The ECOWAS summit in Guinea-Bissau was Tinubu’s first international outing on the African continent since he became Nigerian president on May 29.
He had attended the summit for ‘A New Global Financing Pact’ hosted by Emmanuel Macron, French president, in Paris, France, in June.
ECOWAS was formed in 1975 and currently has 15 member states with a combined population of 387 million and nominal GDP of $816 billion.
The member states are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.