For almost half a century, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has promised to unite fifteen countries in the region. Eight are former French colonies, but members also include such major English-speaking countries as Nigeria and Ghana, as well as Lusophone Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau. ECOWAS even promised a currency union — but the project has continually been delayed. And last Sunday, three states announced that they were leaving ECOWAS for good.

The countries in question — Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger — have each had military coups since 2020, with new authorities claiming to break free of “neocolonialism” and the economic structures imposed by former imperial power France. Last August, other ECOWAS states threatened to invade Niger and topple the postcoup government. But the following month, the three states formed a security pact called Alliance of Sahel States (AES in French) — an agreement that Senegalese development economist Ndongo Samba Sylla calls “a mutual defense pact but also a framework for economic and monetary integration.”

Samba Sylla, author of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story, has written widely on the French neocolonial presence in West Africa. He is a critic of Senegalese president Macky Sall, who this Saturday called off the country’s planned elections indefinitely. He spoke to Jacobin’s David Broder about the three states’ move to leave ECOWAS, what their claimed assertion of sovereignty involves, and the rival claims of Russian and French meddling in the region.