ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the raison d'etre of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and its contemporary peacekeeping role, against the backdrop of economic crisis in the area. It seeks to briefly examine the role of Nigeria, the area's hegemonic power in the peace building enterprise within the context of the republic's foreign policy and national interest. The theoretical rationale of economic integration in West Africa is generally based on possible ways in which economic integration affects the rate of growth of Gross National Product of participating countries. The major regional power in the region and ECOWAS itself is Nigeria, which likes any other regional hegemon, tends to equate its national interest with that of the group. Nigeria became the major dramatis personae in the Liberian political saga, when it created ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group, whose acronym was ECOMOG.
