Nigeria, Feb. 8 -- As the troubled Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) convenes its Ministerial Council meeting in Abuja on 8 February to discuss the quit notice served by three of its members - Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger - the situation in Senegal might well be the elephant in the room.

Three weeks to the presidential election earlier scheduled to hold in that country on 25 February, President Macky Sall announced that the election has been postponed, without immediately giving a new date or any believable reasons. After a wave of protests, he instigated the Senegalese Parliament to announce 15 December as a possible new date.

It's not the postponement that will worry ECOWAS leaders as ministers meet in Nigeria, where ...