The new single currency of ECOWAS, Eco, should see the light of day in 2020. How does the economist that you are apprehend this currency?

We should perhaps wait to know the mechanisms of this new currency to decide. Without wanting to be pessimistic, we can say that the day when France will no longer guarantee the fixed exchange of the CFA Franc into the euro, we will witness upheavals. The unsecured Eco will mainly depend on Nigeria which accounts for 70% of ECOWAS GDP. We will then see this new currency tumble like the Naira right now. Small savers, private sector employees, civil servants, farmers and pensioners will only have their eyes to mourn their loss of purchasing power.

You mean everyone loses in this new currency?

Alas, only the merchants and looters of The State will survive. The first will be able to revalue their goods according to the depreciation of the Eco. The latter will always have the means to convert their loot back into € or $. As for the producers of cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm kernels, cashew nuts, etc., all export products, they will see their receipts plummet between the moment they sell their harvest and the moment they collect the sum, because during this period the value of the ECO will have fallen... Then, the civilization of the "DASH", in force in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Guinea, will extend to the countries of the UEMOA where the losers, i.e. 80% , will see their purchasing power depreciate.

We find you very pessimistic about this single currency project?

I am indeed sorry to go in the opposite direction of most analysts who water our youth with false theories. Money is immediate reality. Keep this forecast analysis well for a few more years, because it will take a long time for the ECO to be adopted by all 15 ECOWAS countries and become a single currency replacing the 8 current national currencies (FCFA, Naira, Cedi, Liberian dollar, Gambian and Sierra Leonean pounds, Guinean franc, Cape Verde escudo), but, beware!, without the guarantee of the French Public Treasury. By then, I will have died of old age…but my analysis will help me to survive among you, honoring my memory for telling you a prophetic truth that will shame all the slayers of the CFA Franc whose Panurge sheep will hold them accountable. for having promised them paradise when they are about to live through monetary hell… Miserere Nobis!

This is still an old project, thought over for many years and implemented by experts in the field?

This story of money reminds me of President Abdou Diouf's quip during the conference of African intellectuals in December 1996, in Dakar, on the initiative of his then Minister of State, Abdoulaye Wade. "The disease of Africans is 'Colloquitis, that of having conferences without follow-up...' exclaimed the Senegalese president. This is exactly what characterizes the project to create the common and single currency of ECOWAS, which was projected following the “Lagos Plan” in 1980. I had then, (through my lectures and debates given at the “Palm Beach” hotel in Lomé in 1982/1983), offered two names: Cauris and Afro. It took the ECOWAS authorities 36 years to give birth to the little mouse “ECO” which only takes up the first 3 letters of “ECOWAS”, an acronym for ECOWAS in English, which means the domination of English speakers, including the almighty Nigeria!… So, I say: “hat!” to Abdou Diouf… Miserere Nobis!

So, for you, the mass is said. The Eco is already a failure?

No, not quite. I say that until we have the rule of law and respect for supra-nationality, we will not have the ECO as a single currency replacing the 8 national currencies of the ECOWAS space… You must be told that our presidential regimes have given our heads of state a taste for personal power. I don't see them willing to limit their personal power. The 7 national currency countries including Nigeria and Ghana currently have the facility to pay their civil servants and law enforcement without delay just by pressing the button on the money board…They won't want to give up this privilege. Ultimately, there is a long way to go before reaching the rule of law. This is the only way to ensure a currency that inspires confidence in its citizens.