ECO crisis: Nigeria, others demand ECOWAS meeting
- Nigeria and six other members of ECOWAS have called for a crucial extraordinary meeting of the West African body
- The aim of the crucial meeting is to discuss the controversial renaming of the CFA Franc as ECO by eight of their counterparts
- The eight French-speaking West African countries had announced their decision to dump the French CFA Franc for the ECO single currency
Nigeria and six other members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Thursday, January 16 called for a crucial extraordinary meeting of the West African body.
The aim is to discuss the controversial renaming of the CFA Franc as ECO by eight of their counterparts.
Premium Times reports that the demand was contained in a communique issued at the end of a meeting by senior government officials of Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, The Gambia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The eight French-speaking West African countries had announced their decision to dump the French CFA Franc for the ECO single currency on Saturday, December 21, 2019.
Source: Twitter
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The eight countries are Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, and Côte d’Ivoire.
The adoption of the common currency, expected to be issued in June 2020, is part of efforts by ECOWAS to establish a single currency among its members and ensure regional economic integration.
The representatives of the affected countries described the renaming of the CFA Franc as ECO by 2020 as “inconsistent with the decision of the Authority of the Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS for the adoption of the ECO as the name of an independent ECOWAS single currency.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria's former minister of agriculture and current president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has said that Africa's free trade area is worth $3.3 trillion.
Adesina, while speaking to State House Correspondents in Abuja after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, said the biggest thing to happen to Africa is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He also said that he believed the effective implementation of AfCFTA would take the continent to a greater height declared his support for the creation of a single currency by ECOWAS.
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