As debates over migration, borders, and national sovereignty intensify across the globe, a small but determined Pan-African team is crisscrossing the continent with a bold message–Africa must dismantle its internal visa regimes and reclaim the freedom of movement envisioned by its founding fathers. Leading that charge is former Ghanaian lawmaker and journalist, Ras Mubarak, whose Trans-Africa Tourism and Unity Campaign is steadily transforming an idealistic slogan–Visa-Free Africa–into a serious continental policy conversation.
Liberia became the 30th country visited by Mubarak and his seven-member team since the campaign began in August, with Côte d’Ivoire next on the list. Backed by the endorsement of the Government of Ghana and welcomed by Liberian authorities including the Vice President, Foreign Minister, Immigration Director, and Tourism Authority upon he and his team arrival in the country, the campaign is gaining political traction even as it exposes the deep structural barriers Africans face when moving within their own continent.
“Africa must be visa-free by 2030,” Mubarak told scores of journalists at a press conference held at the Ghanaian Embassy in Monrovia over the weekend. “In this era of global instability, Africans must unite, integrate, and develop Africa for Africans.”
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The call for free movement in Africa is not new. In 1960, Ghana’s first president Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, alongside Modibo Keita of Mali, Sékou Touré of Guinea, and King Mohammed V of Morocco, met in Casablanca with a vision of a united Africa where Africans could travel freely without visas. More than six decades later, that dream remains largely unfulfilled.
Today, it is often easier for an African to travel to Europe than to another African country. A Liberian seeking to visit North or Southern Africa must navigate visa processes that are costly, time-consuming, and frequently humiliating–barriers that Mubarak argues are a direct continuation of colonial control mechanisms.
“What we are doing today by requiring Africans to obtain visas before entering African countries is reminiscent of apartheid-era treatment of Africans,” he said. “It is reminiscent of colonization–and it must be dismantled.”
Unlike policy papers written in conference rooms, the Trans-Africa campaign is grounded in lived experience. Travelling by road in two vehicles, the team–eight Ghanaians, seven men and one woman–has crossed West, Central, Southern, and East Africa, passing through Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the two Congos, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya.
What they encountered was a continent rhetorically committed to integration but practically hostile to African mobility.
In Cameroon, electronic visas were rejected, forcing the team to drive ten hours back to Nigeria to reapply, Mubarak revealed. Leaving Cameroon was also difficult as officials refused to process their exit on a Sunday because “they do not work on Sundays.”
“Imagine a market woman transporting perishable goods being stopped simply because it is a Sunday,” Mubarak said. “These are real challenges affecting African trade and mobility.”
The campaign also faced a road accident in Zambia, security-related route changes, and outright visa denials–twice–to Mauritania. For their Botswana trip, it took three months for the team, even with Mubarak, a former Member of Parliament,as its head to secure a visa.
“If it takes an African former MP three months, imagine how difficult it is for students or petty traders,” he noted.
Mubarak’s central argument is economic as much as ideological. Africa’s visa regimes, he contends, actively undermine trade, tourism, and industrialization, keeping African economies dependent on raw commodity exports and external markets.
“Why should Liberia import rubber products from outside Africa when it produces rubber? Why should Africa import fertilizer from Ukraine when Morocco is the world’s largest producer?” he asked. “Every dollar spent outside Africa is a dollar that impoverishes Africans.”
A visa-free Africa, he argues, would dramatically boost intra-African trade, complementing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by removing the human mobility barriers that still choke cross-border commerce. Traders, transporters, artisans, and service providers would move goods and skills more efficiently, turning AfCFTA from a legal framework into a lived economic reality.
Tourism is another critical pillar. According to Mubarak, tourism connects hospitality, transport, crafts, food, and entertainment–creating jobs and government revenue across value chains. Yet intra-African tourism remains weak because Africans themselves struggle to visit neighboring countries.
“Travel helps us understand our diversity and shared humanity,” he said. “It deepens cultural understanding and unity.”
Visa Regimes as Colonial Legacy
One of the most compelling dimensions of Mubarak’s campaign is its historical framing. He traces Africa’s restrictive borders directly to the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, where European powers carved the continent into artificial states without regard for culture, ethnicity, or kinship.
“Several years later, we should not allow this colonial legacy–one that divided brothers and sisters–to continue,” he said.
Drawing parallels with apartheid pass laws in South Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and Namibia, Mubarak argues that modern African visa requirements replicate the same logic of controlled African movement–this time enforced by Africans themselves.
“If they did this to us, must we also continue perpetuating that colonial legacy?” he asked.
Opponents of visa-free travel often cite security risks, but Mubarak dismisses this as a weak argument when weighed against evidence. He points to Rwanda, which maintains a visa-free policy despite bordering unstable regions.
“Look at Rwanda–it is visa-free and has not suffered terrorist attacks because of that,” he said.
Technology, he argues, is the solution: biometric systems, shared databases, drones, intelligence cooperation, and citizen vigilance. The problem, he insists, is not capacity but political will.
Kenya’s recent visa-free announcement, along with commitments from countries like Angola–targeting 2030–signals a possible turning point.
Mubarak situates the visa-free debate within a broader crisis of African youth migration. With limited opportunities at home, thousands risk their lives crossing deserts and seas to Europe.
“Africa’s youth are awake,” he said. “Visa-free Africa creates opportunities at home.”
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He also links the campaign to changing global dynamics, including tightening immigration policies in the United States and Europe.
“If today the U.S. says it does not want Liberians, Ghanaians, or other Africans to come, isn’t that an opportunity?” he asked. “That same money could be kept here–imagine what it would do for our universities.”
Mubarak is careful to reject any comparison to Kwame Nkrumah, describing himself instead as a messenger.
“Kwame Nkrumah is too big. I’m just a disciple,” he said. “And as disciples, what do we do? We propagate the messages of our leaders.”
His motivation, he explains, is rooted in pain–pain from seeing missed opportunities, wasted resources, and African success stories elsewhere that contrast sharply with stagnation at home.
“If it is not Moses, and if it is not Ras Mubarak, then who?” he asked. “Somebody has to do the heavy lifting.”
While not all African countries may embrace visa-free travel by 2030, Mubarak believes a critical mass will. Currently, only Rwanda, Kenya, Benin, Seychelles, and The Gambia are fully visa-free, but momentum is building.
For Mubarak and his team, the Trans-Africa campaign is not just about visas–it is about completing Africa’s liberation.
“If people laid down their lives to give us political independence,” he said, “then the least our generation can do is ensure that Africa is truly liberated–not just for ourselves, but for our children.”
In that sense, the campaign’s greatest impact may not be the number of borders crossed, but the conversations ignited–challenging Africans to move from spectators to citizens in shaping a united, integrated, and prosperous continent.