By: Moses Desire Kouyo- Lead, Africa Agenda.
When the African Union tells us that by 2063, Africa will be borderless, it sounds like a grand promise. But let us not be deceived: 2063 is not vision, it is delay. It is procrastination disguised as policy. For the African trader stuck at a checkpoint today, for the student harassed at an embassy today, for the youth who risks the Sahara and the Mediterranean because it is easier to reach Italy than a neighbouring African country, 2063 might as well be never.
The Cost of Waiting
Every day we wait, Africa bleeds. Only 15–17 percent of our trade is within Africa. Compare that to 68 percent in Europe and 58 percent in Asia. That means billions in wealth are shipped out of Africa, while we build walls against one another. Economists say the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could increase intra-African exports by 81 percent, and add as much as $450 billion to Africa’s income by 2035, lifting 30 million people out of extreme poverty. But instead of urgency, our leaders give us a deadline nearly four decades away.
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Meanwhile, the African Development Bank estimates our infrastructure deficit at over $100 billion a year. Traders, most of them women, spend days stuck at border posts, bribing their way through, because colonial lines drawn in Berlin in 1884 are still treated as sacred fences.
And what of our mobility? Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, says he needs 35 visas to travel freely on the continent. If the wealthiest African is shackled by borders, what chance does the average student, farmer, or trader have? Today, only four countries, Benin, Gambia, Rwanda, and Seychelles—offer visa-free travel to all Africans. After decades of speeches about unity, that is all we have to show.
The Hypocrisy of Pan-Africanism Without Movement
Our leaders never tire of invoking Nkrumah’s name. They gather in Addis Ababa, they speak of unity, and they commission glossy “Agenda 2063” documents. But the truth is plain: Pan-Africanism without free movement is hypocrisy.
Nkrumah never said, “Africa must unite in 40 years.” He said, “Africa must unite now.” He understood that independence without integration would leave us vulnerable. And he has been proven right: six decades later, we remain exporters of raw materials to the world, importers of finished goods, and prisoners of artificial boundaries.
Even the African Union knows the shame. In February 2025, its own summit admitted, “We cannot talk about a united Africa if Africans themselves cannot move freely.” Yet in the same breath, they reassure us that by 2063, things will change. It is like a doctor telling a patient with malaria, “Hold on for forty years, and the cure will come.”
Why We Need Borderless Africa Now
We do not need 2063 to tell us what we already know. Freeing Africa’s borders would:
- Unlock trade worth $21.9 billion immediately—almost half of Africa’s current exports.
- Give opportunities to our youth—400 million under the age of 35, who cannot afford to wait for promises written into the next century.
- Stop the hypocrisy of a continent that criticizes Europe’s fortress borders while erecting its own walls against fellow Africans.
And let us be clear: this is not chaos, as some leaders quietly fear. It is order. It is vision. It is justice. A Ghanaian should move to Kenya to work without begging for visas. A South African student should study in Morocco without suspicion. A Malian trader should sell in Senegal without being milked at every checkpoint.
The Urgency of Now
If Europe can tear down walls and create the Schengen Zone, why should Africa wait four decades? If Africans can die in the Mediterranean today, why can’t they live freely in Africa today? If our leaders believe in Pan-Africanism, let them prove it not in 2063, but in 2025 and beyond.
We must demand: ratify and enforce the Free Movement Protocol now, scrap the colonial visas now, invest in roads, ports, and digital corridors now, and scale up the Pan-African Payment System so that we trade in our own currencies now.
Africa does not need promises about 2063. Africa needs courage in 2025. Every delay is betrayal. Every excuse is surrender.
Nkrumah was right then, and he is right now: Africa must unite now. Not tomorrow, not in 2063, but now.
