By Linus Aleke, Abuja
The ECOWAS Parliament Committee Chairman on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Senator Edwin Snowe Jr. said the influence of colonial masters to a very large extent is frustrating the operationalisation of the single currency code named ECO, in West Africa.
Speaking exclusively to Linus Aleke, at the ongoing first ordinary session of ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja, the Leader of Liberian Delegation to the Community Parliament said the foreign reserve of francophone West Africa is in France.
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He noted that if ECO comes on stream fully, it will take away that foreign reserve from France and bring it back to West Africa.
Queering if France will be willing to relinquish such advantage, the Liberian MP answer, also answered in the negative.
According to him, in the politics of it, we need a strong political will power to make sure that we push it through since that is what we want. We must confront the hard realities with a will power.
Senator Snowe Jr noted that until ECOWAS stop French involvement in running the economy of Francophone West Africa, the reality of ECO would be a dead dream.
On whether the West is surreptitiously replicating the 1884/5 scramble for Africa in the 21th century, the Liberian MP said it is not far from it.
He however, noted that West Africa now have the sophistication to curb and correct this overbearing influence of her erstwhile colonial masters.
He noted that if this overbearing influence is allowed it to linger for so long, “it might leave our hands and of course we will continue to suffer in the hands of Western powers”.
