Abidjan, September 29, 2025. One could have expected a clash of arguments, the classic opposition between the Wall Street practitioner and the activist intellectual from Dakar. But the panel dedicated to monetary sovereignty, held on the sidelines of the CGECI Academy and moderated by Adama Wade, Editor-in-Chief of Financial Afrik, turned into a duet of almost harmonious voices on the nature and limits of the CFA franc.
On one side, Achille Ekeu, an American of Cameroonian origin, a business banker in Washington, former executive of PNC Bank, and founder of the Washington Valuation Group. His words, shaped in the rigors of international finance, had the effect of a brutal observation: “The CFA franc does not belong to Africans, it belongs to France.” Behind this blunt statement lies a conviction: without control over their currency, the UEMOA states remain prisoners of a framework where budgetary orthodoxy imposes itself more strongly than endogenous development.
On the other side, Demba Moussa Dembélé, president of ARCADE and a prominent figure in the African Forum for Alternatives, known for his critical erudition. Far from contradicting Ekeu, he drives the point home: “Out of the eight UEMOA countries, seven are classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs).” For him, the link between the persistence of the current monetary framework and the maintenance of economies in a situation of structural dependence, unable to escape the trap of underdevelopment, is evident.
The audience, momentarily suspended, perceived the strange harmony between these two seemingly different paths. Ekeu, a pedagogue of global finance, elected in 2018 as president of the Maryland/Washington DC region of the NACVA, and author of several reference books. Dembélé, an organic intellectual, collaborator of CETRI and co-director of the essay manifesto “Liberating Africa from Monetary Servitude”. Two styles, one same conclusion: money, far from being a simple technical instrument, remains the Gordian knot of African sovereignty.
