ABSTRACT
Regional security and conflict management mechanisms dot Africa’s security landscape in ways that suggest they are ritualized, indispensable, and prerequisite canons of peace and security. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) are essential to the African security discourse and policy making. Despite the convention of regions and regional security mechanisms in Africa as a separate (intermediate) level of analysis (Kelly 2007), there is neither a critical discourse of the orthodox approach nor adequate exploration of alternative perspectives. Moreover, critical issues abound in relation to their formalism (rhetoric, aspirations, and stated purposes) versus their reality (institutional setting, capacity for implementation, and impact) and their capacity to adapt and respond to emerging regional security challenges. There is a near consensus that the impact of regional security mechanisms is at best mixed (Omorogbe 2011; Obi 2009; Olonisakin 2004; Adebajo and Ismail 2004).
