This article seeks to analyze the comparative initiatives undertaken by certain West African countries and international organizations with a view to integrating the sub-region between 1960 and 1975. It contends that the initiatives could not succeed in creating an inclusive sub-regional organization because the countries that spearheaded them lacked dynamic foreign policy, financial and human resources to pursue such grandiose project. Nigeria was the only country that possessed the prerequisite, in addition to the political will, to undertake the integrative project successfully. The position the article is that without Nigeria’s dynamic foreign policy, the integrative organization known as ECOWAS would not have been established.

Keywords: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Integration, International Relations, International Politics, National Interests, International Organization, ECOWAS.