Nairobi, May 14 -- Even President William Ruto's most committed critics would struggle to fault the optics of last week's France-Africa Summit.

Nairobi hosted 30 heads of state, President Emmanuel Macron of France and the who's who of African capital - Dangote, Motsepe, El Sewedy, Rabiu - in a pageant that burnished the city's growing reputation as the continent's preferred venue for conferences.

I attended the opening ceremony. And what struck me most was the opening remarks by President Ruto. The ideas were not new. African academics have been making these arguments for a long time.

What was new was the messenger: a head of state who had personally negotiated with Western creditors that treat African governments like wayward teenager...