I help firms enter Francophone Africa without paying for the lessons twice. I live and work in Abidjan, where a text written in Dakar or Yaoundé always ends up being read: at the counter.
I have been settled in Abidjan since February 2012. Before advising on market entry, I spent more than seven years teaching business management, economics and English literature in Abidjan. Since then I have run community operations, localisation and consumer intelligence for a global digital platform across the WAEMU zone. That is where I learned to measure a market where it actually pays: at the counter, not in the survey.
On the record
A CFO does not buy a story; he checks dates. Here they are, with what lets you check them.
My family has been in Côte d'Ivoire since the 1990s; for years I came to visit and never stayed. Then one Friday, the first of February 2012, I settled in Abidjan for good. I have lived and worked here since, without a break. The "field observations, 2012–2026" quoted on the home page start that day.
English and Literature teacher, part-time, at three Abidjan schools: Glory Academy (Koumassi), where it all started with teaching practice in 2012; Amoke Memorial School (Adjamé); Marcory Baptist Group of Schools. Schools call you back; that is how you know you did the job.
International English School of Abidjan (2017–2019): subject teacher and French–English interpreter. Consult IT (2019–2020): assistant project manager at a certification and type-approval firm. Then two part-time lectureships: AIMS (2020), ABE Level 4 programme — marketing, economics, business environment; University of Abidjan (2021), undergraduate courses and exam papers from level 200 to level 400. Seven-plus years of teaching in all, before advisory work.
Over 100 million downloads; the name stays confidential under contract. For Francophone Africa I run community operations, content quality control, voice-of-customer analysis and French localisation, Spanish added in 2026. A few numbers from that work: a 1,024-member WhatsApp community built from zero, more than 2,000 catalogue lines audited with 209 mislabelled titles flagged, 57 customer pain signals logged across six languages.
PENIEL AFRICA CONSULTING (SARLU) registered in Abidjan through the CEPICI, file no. 508510. RCCM CI-ABJ-03-2026-B13-07900, IDU CI-2026-0064461 L. Registered office: Cocody, Angré Djorogobité 2. The registration went through a firm, 170,000 FCFA with tax follow-up included — the first-hand figure behind the French analysis « Créer une société en Côte d'Ivoire : ce que le prix achète » (English twin: the CEPICI registration timeline).
Signed market-entry mandate with a Turkish construction-chemicals manufacturer: 34 products catalogued in seven families, positioned against Sika, Mapei, Fosroc and DCP for Francophone Africa distribution. Business-introducer agreement, under NDA, with a Nigerian cybersecurity firm. Names on request, with their consent.
Speaker at the AITCR (Africa International Trade & Commerce Research) webinar "Making African Trade Easier and Faster", on one question: how to finance, govern and sustain trade-facilitation reforms beyond pilots and political cycles.
Abidjan Border Forum 2026, Parc des Expositions, Abidjan: three days on borders, customs and corridors, and the corridor conversations that feed the analyses on this site.
What I do
The Terrain Audit has three layers. Regulatory intelligence: what the OHADA, BCEAO or BEAC text says, and what the counter actually asks for. Relationship architecture: who carries the decision, as opposed to who signs it. Consumer and market intelligence: what people buy, at what price, through which channel, today.
Every analysis on this site names its sources and says what I could not verify. When a text moves, the analysis moves with it, and says what changed.
Regulatory watch
Regulation is like a child carried on your back: you never put it down. You know when it moves, and which way. A repealed regulation, an instruction that turns "in principle" into "must", a new fee ceiling: each move changes what you can do, and at what cost.
What I am watching now:
PI-SPI and mobile payments
Above 8,000 FCFA a day, a mobile-money transfer can cost up to 0.8%. What that changes for suppliers paid by phone, and for the firms that pay them.
PAPSS, the BEAC and the BCEAO
The BEAC joined the pan-African payment system as a full member; the BCEAO took an observer seat. A Lomé–Abidjan payment still shows as "international" in the app.
WAEMU exchange control: Regulation 06/2024 and its instructions
The 2010 text is repealed. Intragroup loans, the 120-day export rule, the documents your bank must now ask for: the rules that matter for a subsidiary in Abidjan.
Corrections log
Every analysis says what I could not verify. When I got something wrong, it is written here, dated, and the error stays visible in the article: you don't repaint a cracked wall, you show the crack.
Four French analyses published under /fr/insights/ moved to /fr/analyses/, the single French section. Old addresses redirect.
"Twenty-Four Names. Sixteen Companies." — the piece said fifteen. Recounted name by name, the twenty-four clearances hide sixteen companies. Headline corrected; the correction stays at the top of the article.
Same piece: I wrote that the number of institutions open to the public on PI-SPI was "absent". Wrong. The BCEAO publishes it as lists, the latest of which, at 30 September 2026, holds 175 names. Taken up and developed in "PI-SPI, One Year On", section "Where I was wrong".
Dated updates added to three pieces (Nigeria the lender, OAPI, profit repatriation): new data, original text kept.
The French version of the site referred to the author in the feminine. Corrected throughout, tags and structured data included. The registered address, which differed between the two languages, was unified: Cocody, Angré Djorogobité 2.
Spotted an error? Write to me. It will be corrected here, dated, without erasing the original.
Short bio, for event organisers and press
Mercy A. Olagunju is a Francophone Africa market-entry advisor based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, since 2012, and the founder of Peniel Consulting Africa (PENIEL AFRICA CONSULTING, SARLU, incorporated March 2026). He works across the WAEMU and CEMAC zones on OHADA company formation, BCEAO payment and exchange-control rules, and consumer intelligence. Before advising on market entry, he taught business management, economics and English literature in Abidjan for more than seven years, then ran community operations, localisation and consumer intelligence for a global digital platform across the WAEMU zone. He writes in English and French.
Contact
WhatsApp: +225 05 74 76 64 68 · Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Mercy A. Olagunju · Page: Peniel Consulting Africa
Peniel Consulting Africa is the trading name of PENIEL AFRICA CONSULTING (SARLU), RCCM CI-ABJ-03-2026-B13-07900, IDU CI-2026-0064461 L, Abidjan.
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