Op-Ed – Borderless Africa: The Reparations Africa Owes Herself

Story from Aflao: Two Enams, One People, Two Countries

In Aflao, on the Ghana–Togo border, we joined a community football match as part of our Borderless Africa community activities; Ghanaians on one side, Togolese on the other. We met several interesting people and discovered so much about life in border communities. Among the players were two young men from the opposite teams, both named Enam, which means “God has given”, a name common among the Ewe people. They spoke Ewe fluently and understood each other perfectly. Interestingly, when the Ghanaian Enam spoke English, his Togolese counterpart could not understand, and when the Togolese Enam spoke French, the Ghanaian did not understand either. They shared a name, a people, and family ties across the border, yet colonial languages and national identities branded them as foreigners. Their story is not unique it is repeated across Africa. The Chewa, Ngoni, Tombuka and Ngonde are divided between Malawi and Zambia; the Mandinka, the Soninke between Mali and Senegal; the Wolof and the Serer between Gambia and Senegal, and so forth. The story of the Ghanian and Togolese ‘Enams’ illustrates what is true of most African countries and what the colonial borders have done to African cultures, ethnicities, and even families.

The Colonial Carving of Africa

The artificial borders separating African people are part of the most enduring legacies of colonialism in Africa. These borders were not created by Africans. They were sketched during the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference where European nations, without the participation of any African, sliced the continent into pieces with no regard for its people. Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister of the UK at the time, is quoted as saying; “We have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no white man’s feet have ever trod; we have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where the rivers and lakes were”. They were aware of the damage they were doing.

Arbitrary lines on colonial maps split ethnic groups, merged rivals, and disrupted centuries-old patterns of life and created political units that served colonial interests rather than African realities. These borders remain a painful reminder that Africa’s political geography is a colonial inheritance, not an African design.

Colonial Borders; Daggers to the Soul

The colonial borders were more than lines on maps; they cut into the African soul. They separated families across borders, cut across ancient kingdoms and split them apart, they closed off communities from their own trade lines. They interrupted the flow of culture, kinship, and commerce. They taught us to look on our brothers and sisters as foreigners but opened our gates to strangers more freely than to each other. The Berlin Conference did not just partition our land; it tore our humanity.

This tragedy continues today. It is easier for an American, Chinese, or European to conduct business in several African countries than it is for an African merchant to take a trip over a border to sell her merchandise. As a result, intra-African trade has lagged behind – at a measly 14.9% according to the Africa Trade Report 2024.

A Kenyan requires a visa to access several African nations, but a French comes with utmost ease. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, famously pointed this out to his French counterpart during the Africa CEO Forum in 2024, the viral video clip from that has been circulating since then. Africans have facilitated foreigners more than our own people to access our markets, our land, and our workforce, than Africans welcoming Africans. According to the Visa Openness Report 2024, only 28% of intra-African trade is visa-free.

African map showing colonial borders versus ethnic realities — illustrating how these lines split peoples like the Maasai, Ewe, and Somali.

Reparations

People of African descent across the world have been at pains to let the world acknowledge the harm that was caused to us through the evils of slavery and colonialism. Reparations is simply about the repair of the past damage. It is a righteous call for acknowledgment of these crimes, for restitution and for compensation. Our demand for compensation is not far-fetched neither is it unprecedented. It is a call to #ReRightHistory. The Germans have paid and continue to pay reparations for the holocaust. On the contrary, they have not done so for their genocide in Namibia except to pledge token so-called “development aid”. The campaign for reparations has intensified with the African Union declaring it as the theme for the decade. The physical borders and their manifestations in our finance, economics, travel, culture etc are some of the most visible remnants of the colonial past. Removing them therefore is a crucial part of the repair.

But this part of the repair is within our power to do. Accepting responsibility for this does not detract from the responsibility of the perpetrators of the historical crimes for which reparations must be paid. On the contrary it shows our willingness to embrace wholistic repair that counts on us to do our part to undo the damage that we have endured for centuries. The most significant of this is to give to ourselves a Borderless Africa.

The Germans have paid and continue to pay reparations for the holocaust. On the contrary, they have not done so for their genocide in Namibia except to pledge token so-called “development aid”

Borderless Africa – Reparations within our power

We must complete the work our fore-fathers and foremothers started. They led us to regain our independence from the colonialists. So much blood and was shed. That political independence (no matter how nominal) puts the power in our hands to undo the borders that were created to divide and rule us.

Redress from the former colonialists is appropriate, but Africa owes herself one united and borderless republic. One currency and one central bank. One passport and one citizenship. One African army united under one command. Congruent infrastructure, free movement of goods and people, and African systems of knowledge, values, and a renaissance of African indigenous languages – an Africa unbroken by the colonial languages, but unified through the Kiswahili, IsiZulu, Hausa, Luganda, Amharic, Lingala, and the many other African lingua fracas.
We can and should erase the colonial borders; physical and mental, and link Africa, as it originally was. Undoing Berlin 1884 is within our power to do as Africans. Thanks to our political independence (no matter how nominal), we do not need another roundtable by white people to decide for us what to do with the borders. With enough political will and a people’s commitment, we can remove the borders. We are not saying this would be easy. Many attempts have been made in the past in the spirit of Pan-Africanism, anchored in a long history of history from the Pan-African Congresses to the All-African Peoples Conferences, the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union (1962), the Organization of African Unity (1963), the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to the Senegambia Confederation (1985).However, grounding this vision in the values of Ubuntu, that “I am because we are”; in Harambee, that call to unity; in Ujamaa, that value of familyhood and common prosperity; in Pan-Africanism, solidarity, self-determination, we can achieve it.

Thanks to our political independence (no matter how nominal), we do not need another roundtable by white people to decide for us what to do with the borders. With enough political will and a people’s commitment, we can remove the borders.

A Unified, Borderless Africa is in our interest

A borderless Africa would unlock immense potential, reconnecting communities divided by colonial lines and transforming the continent into a truly unified bloc. Free movement of people would allow Africans to travel, work, and live anywhere without restrictions, while open borders would boost trade, lower costs, and create one vast integrated market. Shared management of resources and continental infrastructure projects would thrive, strengthening cooperation instead of conflict. For families like the Maasai, Ewe, and Somali, whose lives were split by arbitrary colonial maps, borderless living would mean cultural reconnection and dignity restored. Beyond economics and culture, a united Africa would give Africa greater bargaining power on the global stage, shifting her from a continent fragmented by colonial design to one that speaks with a single, powerful voice.

A unified and borderless Africa vision is not a mirage. It is the agenda to defeat neo-colonialism and bring about the collective prosperity that we long for. The flags have been replaced, but the map still has the scars of Berlin. We need to cure them, not with talk but with courage, creativity, and unity.

Borderless Africa is the reparation we owe ourselves. And we must pay it in our lifetime!

Hardi Yakubu (Movement Coordinator, Africans Rising): Eunice Odhiambo (Reparations Campaign Officer, Africans Rising)

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