“This timely book has demonstrated that no subjects are more important than those of movements and borders in regional integrative associations. With the careful selection of ECOWAS as a major case study, this impressive collection offers the leading insights on protocols, regulations, trade, and financing to affirm the relevance of regional integration to development, citizenship and collective transformation.” Toyin Falola, Frances and Sanger Mossiker, The University of Texas at Austin, USA “This volume offers deep and refreshing perspectives on the subject of borders and borderlands in West Africa. It is a compelling read that marries critical interrogation of longstanding issues of integration, illegal migration, cross-border criminalities, and border closure, among others, with a contemporary subject like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in the context of West Africa. It is highly recommended to scholars, policy analysts, practitioners, state officials, and students.” Freedom C ONUOHA, University of Nigeria, Nigeria. This book discusses the phenomenon of regional integration in Africa and the ensuing discourse on the intercontinental free trade agreement within the continent. Long before the move for the facilitation of free trade in Africa, freedom of movement by Africans within Africa backed up by the AU Protocol on the free movement of persons has been in existence, and in one way or another both moves are closely related. This book explores the existing relationships between the ECOWAS Protocol on free movement, goods and services, and AfCFTA on one hand and the impact of the implementation and non-implementation of these policies on West Africa on the other. Samuel Kehinde Okunade is a Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He received his PhD in Conflict Transformation from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and his research interests span across security and borderlands studies, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and migration studies, and regional integration in Africa. Olusola Ogunnubi is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Gender and African Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa, and also Visiting Scholar at Carleton University, Canada. He received his PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and his research interests include regional studies, comparative foreign policy, corruption in Africa, African regional power politics and soft power diplomacy. |