The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning in Nigeria on December 30, 2019 issued a press release, saying: “Nigeria has received the news of the change of name of the UEMOA Currency, the CFA to Eco supposedly as the ECOWAS Single Currency. Nigeria is studying the situation and would respond in due course”. The statement was signed by YunusaTankoAbdullahi, Special Adviser, Media and Communication to the Minister.
Surprisingly, few days after the ‘coup’ was announced, the Government of Ghana, Nigeria’s nearest Anglophone neighbour , indicated interest in joining the ‘new Eco’ gang-up, bringing the emerging monetary union ‘members’ to nine. They include Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo plus Ghana. This leaves only six out of the fifteen ECOWAS members.
Is Emmanuel Macron’s role in overseeing the ‘renaming’ of the CFA as ‘Eco’ not another demonstration of France’s hegemonic grip on its former colonies in Africa? Is the umbilical cord of France’s “assimilation” policy not waxing longer and stronger? Is this renewed attachment to the French metropole by a growing number of West African states not deepening the perceived gulf between the Francophone and Anglophone ECOWAS members? Will this gulf ever get narrow enough or closed up to make for the...
In South Africa, blacks from other countries of the continent are being killed in large numbers or pursued out of the country by ‘indigenous blacks’. In Ghana, on several occasions, Nigerians have been chased out of the country, and their businesses destroyed by indigenous Ghanaians. In other countries such as Libya, Morocco, Sudan, etc., nationals of other African countries are being ‘bought and sold’ as slaves.
In all, while the pressure to inaugurate AfCFTA is getting more intense by the day, the leadership of the African Union must be priming their strategies to effectively tackle the internecine hatred and deadly rivalry among African states. Indeed, the‘soul and spirit’ of virtually all African countries are still tied to their colonial masters. The unfolding chicanery around the ‘Eco’ perfectly exemplifies these primordial separatist tendencies.