African youth push back against colonial legacy Sahel states challenge France’s influence

An article published by Ghanaian news website MyJoyOnline examines growing calls among African youth to break away from France’s neocolonial influence, highlighting mounting criticism of the CFA franc system, Africa’s debt burden and the demand for reparations for resources extracted during the colonial era. Caliber.Az presents an excerpt from the article for its readers.

“Africa's youth are drawing a line in the sand. When young delegates from Ghana and the Alliance of Sahel States gather in Accra next month, they will not simply discuss the continent's debt crisis — they will lay out a plan to break free from it.

The Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF) will host a Youth Forum on Debt and Reparations, ‘Africa's Freedom Is In Our Hands’, on September 5 at the ISSER Conference Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon. An estimated 200 participants are expected to attend.

The forum, themed ‘Reclaiming Africa's Wealth, Resisting Neocolonial Bondage’, is designed to expose the raw nerve connecting Africa's colonial past, its present economic stranglehold and the burning question of reparations.

The CFA Franc, French imperial extraction and the wider architecture of debt bondage will all come under scrutiny. Criticism of France, the organisers stress, is not aimed at the French people — it is directed squarely at a system that continues to pull the strings: a currency pegged to France and managed by the French Treasury, backed by military interventions and financial coercion. 

The CFA, they argue, is not merely a currency — it is a leash. And they are determined not just to loosen it, but to shatter it completely.

Reparations, the organisers insist, are not a charitable gesture to be begged for — they are a debt owed, and one that must be paid. Colonial powers, they argue, extracted resources, labour and dignity for centuries.

The presence of young delegates from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger adds a sharp regional edge to the discussions. The three countries, which form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), have invited their ambassadors to Ghana to address the forum. Their participation, the PPF says, will ground the debate in the lived reality of the AES sovereignty project — a real-world experiment in economic self-determination that offers lessons far beyond the Sahel.

The forum will be chaired by Ghana's Presidential Special Envoy on Reparations, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah — a signal that the conversation has moved from the margins to the mainstream.

For Sumaila Mohammed, Head of the PPF's Economic and Reparations Department, the stakes could not be higher.

‘The Forum is about bringing African youth together to understand the economic structures that continue to constrain our sovereignty — and to develop practical responses,’ he said.

The forum is rooted in a wider Pan-African vision. The PPF, headquartered in Accra, works to coordinate and support progressive movements across Africa and the diaspora. Its philosophy draws directly from the Pan-Africanist legacy of Dr Kwame Nkrumah — above all, the conviction that Africa's political and economic unity is not optional, but essential to its sovereignty.

The September 5 forum is designed to connect the historical demand for reparations with the immediate urgency of debt cancellation and economic independence. But above all, it is designed to give young Africans a platform — and a voice — to put forward their own proposals.. The time for demands has come,” the article read.