Africa has enough trade rules, step up deal-making ability

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AFTA) has garnered the required 22 ratifications for it to enter force. [Courtesy]

When Kwame Nkrumah declared that “Africa must unite,” he was articulating a vision deeper than political symbolism. He, alongside Pan-African trailblazers such as Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba, understood that unity was ultimately about dignity, economic self-determination, and shared prosperity.

Their struggles were not only for flags and independence, but for an Africa capable of shaping its own economic destiny. Today, that Pan-African aspiration has taken concrete institutional form. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) represents one of the most ambitious integration projects globally.