I have a friend, who knows African politics--esp old French colonies pretty well. He also says same thing about West African CFA francs. I know enough monetary economics to see what is going on.
Yes, West African CFA is pegged to Euro, now. Earlier, it was pegged to French francs. One disadvantage: countries don't have economic freedom/flexibility to finance public debt. If a country issues its own currency (not pegged to any Western currency), it has flexibility to issue/print money to finance public projects the way the Federal reserve in the USA is doing right now, by buying corporate bonds and treasury notes, etc. The flexibility that the US Federal reserve, the ECB, the Bank of Japan have, can't be exported to African central banks by the mere fact of having own currency; there should be demand for such currency. Today, every Chinese, every African, every Indian, every Latin American (almost 75% of the world population) wants to hold assets in USD, EUR, etc, but not in Kwachas (Zambian currency), not in Turkish Lira.
If a currency is not hard pegged, if a currency is issued by a local sovereign central bank, then you can see run away inflation as you can witness in many African countries. This inflation is also bad, and that forces moneyed-locals to keep foreign currencies instead of local currency.
The solution: good governance with local currency, not hard pegged to any Western currency. Without good governance, local currency will lead to bad outcomes.