Regionalism has become a world-wide phenomenon. The purpose and intents of regionalism vary from regions to regions. Since the mid-1980, regionalist initiatives have attracted a greater attention both from policy fields and in academic theorising. The renewed hope in regionalism led to restructuring of the existing regionalist initiatives and institutions in Africa and in other world regions. For Africa, examples of these are transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union, the re-intensification of East African regionalism, the transformation of regionalism in Southern Africa as well as West Africa. One important observation is the idea of multiple actors of regions introduced in the new regionalism approach. So far, the literature has made attempt to study civil society as parts of these actors but no one has yet succeeded in providing a clear framework of studying regional civil society actors in Africa on one hand. On the other hand is the obsession of scholars with the Southern African regionalism. This is another concern that has resulted in the neglect of the West African region: a region with a theoretical explorative potential with empirical indicators of civil society actors in regional governance. In view of the foregone, as part of an ongoing research, this paper offers a new perspective by rethinking the agency of regional civil society actors in African regions and regionalisms through a new framework clarifying distortion on regional identity. The paper transcends the mainstream conception of civil society agency in African regions and argues that a political sociological perspective of regional identity of civil society can help provide a richer understanding of regional civil society in Africa.