Delegates have gathered at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital, for the celebrations of ECOWAS @50, a big event for the regional bloc, a community fostering unity and integration.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, the Chairman of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government, joined other executives of the community, and General Yakubu Gowon, the only surviving father of the original group that helped birth the community in 1975, through a treaty signed in Lagos.

This significant aspect of the ECOWAS was reenacted at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), in Victoria Island, Lagos.

After the celebrations at the NIIA, heads of state and government and ECOWAS officials headed to the Eko Hotel for the continuation of the celebrations.

In an earlier statement by Tinubu’s spokesman Bayo Onanuga, said the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Touray, is expected to deliver the welcome address.

“At the Eko Hotels and Suites event, President Tinubu, the Chairman of ECOWAS, will highlight the economic bloc’s milestones. The Chairman of the NIIA and former Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, will review the bloc’s 50-year journey, which panellists at the NIIA will later analyse.

“The only surviving Head of State who signed the ECOWAS declaration, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (Rtd), will participate in all the ceremonies and deliver a speech at the Eko Hotels,” the statement read.