Africa has no shortage of resources, people, markets or ambition, yet one of the continent’s greatest contradictions is that these enormous advantages continue to operate within an economic system divided by borders, different currencies, complicated visa regimes and uneven regulatory frameworks. Africans live on the same continent, share deep historical and cultural connections, trade with one another and increasingly speak about the possibilities of a common economic future, but the reality of moving people, capital, skills and businesses across African borders remains considerably more difficult than the continental vision suggests.
It was against this background that Professor PLO Lumumba delivered a powerful intervention at the Delta State Economic & Investment Summit 2026 in Asaba, Nigeria, transforming what might ordinarily have been a conversation about investment opportunities in one Nigerian state into a much broader reflection on the future of African economic integration. The summit, held under the theme “Harnessing Our Strengths, Unlocking Our Potential,” brought attention to Delta State’s investment opportunities across areas including the blue economy, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, technology and logistics, while positioning the state as a destination capable of attracting investors and stimulating wider economic development.
Lumumba, however, challenged the conversation to move beyond the boundaries of Delta State. In addressing Governor Sheriff Francis Orohwedor Oborevwori, he acknowledged the progress being made while arguing that the state’s success should become an example that neighbouring states, the Nigerian Federal Government and ultimately other African countries could learn from and replicate. His central message was that development becomes significantly more valuable when it is not confined to the place where it begins but instead creates a chain reaction of economic progress across wider communities.
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That argument is particularly relevant to Delta because the state possesses characteristics that could allow it to become more than a successful subnational economy. With a 163-kilometre coastline, four seaports, two airports and opportunities spanning the blue economy, agriculture, energy, logistics and special economic zones, Delta has the potential to position itself as an important gateway between Nigeria and the wider African market. The state’s investment story, therefore, should not be understood only in terms of what it can produce for Delta or even for Nigeria, but also in terms of how effectively its infrastructure and economic capacity can connect Nigerian businesses to opportunities across the continent.
This is where Lumumba’s call for greater African integration becomes especially significant.
Africa Cannot Build One Market While Keeping Its People Apart
The African Continental Free Trade Area was established with an ambitious objective: to create a single African market, increase intra-African trade, strengthen regional value chains and enable African economies to benefit more significantly from their combined economic potential. The African Union has consistently presented continental integration as an essential component of Africa’s long-term development strategy, while the African Development Bank has continued to identify infrastructure, regulatory, financial and trade fragmentation as major obstacles to achieving that ambition.
Yet there is a fundamental question that Africa must confront honestly: how can the continent build a truly integrated market if the people who create, operate and sustain that market cannot move easily within it?
This was at the heart of Lumumba’s appeal for freer movement of Africans across the continent. His argument was not simply about making travel more convenient for tourists or business executives; rather, it was about recognising human mobility as an important component of economic development. A Ghanaian engineer who can easily work on a project in Nigeria contributes skills to the Nigerian economy while expanding professional opportunities for Ghana. A Nigerian entrepreneur who can establish a business in Kenya creates economic activity in Kenya while expanding the reach of Nigerian enterprise. An Ethiopian investor who can efficiently explore opportunities in Delta can bring capital and expertise into Nigeria while gaining access to a market that may previously have appeared unnecessarily difficult to enter.
People, therefore, should not be treated merely as passengers in Africa’s economic integration project because they are among its most important productive assets.
The African Union recognised this principle when it adopted the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment in 2018, which seeks to progressively facilitate the movement of Africans and connects mobility with trade, investment, labour, tourism, skills transfer and development. The existence of the protocol demonstrates that free movement is not an abstract idea invented at a conference in Asaba; it is already part of Africa’s institutional vision, although its implementation across the continent remains incomplete.
Visa Barriers Can Become Economic Barriers
Lumumba’s example of travelling from Addis Ababa to Asaba was particularly powerful because it placed an ordinary African experience inside a much larger economic argument. His vision was of an African investor being able to identify an opportunity in Delta, board a flight in Ethiopia and arrive in Nigeria without encountering unnecessary layers of administrative barriers that can discourage legitimate economic activity.
The point should not be interpreted as an argument for abandoning border controls or ignoring legitimate concerns about national security, immigration, public health and sovereignty. Every responsible government has an obligation to know who enters its territory and to protect its citizens, but effective border management does not necessarily require excessive barriers for legitimate travellers, investors, students, professionals and tourists.
Africa should therefore move towards what might be described as smart openness, in which governments strengthen digital identity systems, immigration databases, customs procedures and security cooperation while simultaneously making legitimate movement faster and more predictable. The objective should not be to eliminate every border but to ensure that borders do not become unnecessary obstacles to the economic participation of Africans in other African economies.
A continent that wants to attract African investment must make it easier for Africans to reach African investment opportunities.
That principle is particularly important because the African market is not merely a collection of companies and financial institutions; it is a market of more than a billion people whose movement, skills, consumption and entrepreneurship determine whether continental integration succeeds or remains largely a political aspiration.
The Currency Question Cannot Be Ignored
Lumumba also raised an equally important issue when he contrasted Africa’s monetary fragmentation with Europe’s experience of monetary integration. His observation was not simply that Africa uses numerous currencies, but that those currencies can introduce additional costs, exchange-rate risks and financial complexities into transactions that are taking place within the same continent.
A company conducting business between Nigeria and Ghana, for example, must consider the naira and the cedi, while businesses operating across other African markets encounter currencies such as the Kenyan shilling, Ethiopian birr, South African rand and several others. Currency differences are a natural consequence of sovereign states pursuing their own monetary policies, but they can also make cross-border commerce more complicated and expensive than it needs to be.
The idea of a single African currency therefore deserves serious discussion, although it must be approached with economic realism rather than political enthusiasm. Africa cannot simply announce one currency and expect the structural problems of dozens of economies to disappear overnight. A successful common currency would require significant convergence in inflation, fiscal policy, monetary governance, financial regulation, banking systems, reserves and economic stability, as well as a level of political trust that the continent has not yet achieved.
The more practical question, therefore, is not whether Africa can immediately create one currency, but whether it can progressively build the financial infrastructure required for deeper monetary integration.
In this regard, Africa has already begun moving in an important direction.
PAPSS Shows That Integration Can Begin Before a Common Currency
The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with African continental institutions, demonstrates how African countries can reduce some of the financial barriers associated with cross-border commerce even while maintaining their national currencies. PAPSS enables participating financial institutions to facilitate cross-border payments using African currencies, thereby reducing dependence on complex correspondent-banking arrangements and, in suitable transactions, the need to convert every payment through an external hard currency.
This development is significant because it demonstrates that monetary integration does not have to begin with the creation of a single currency. Africa can first build systems that allow its existing currencies and financial institutions to interact more efficiently, thereby creating greater economic connectivity while the continent continues to work towards deeper convergence.
Recent expansion of PAPSS-linked payment infrastructure, including initiatives connecting national payment systems to the continental platform, demonstrates that this process is already moving beyond theory. For African businesses, the real significance is not the technical architecture itself but what it can ultimately mean for everyday commerce: a trader should be able to sell across an African border, receive payment efficiently and reinvest that money without navigating a financial maze simply because the buyer and seller happen to use different national currencies.
That is the kind of integration that people and businesses can actually experience.
Nigeria Has a Responsibility Beyond Its Borders
Lumumba’s message carries particular significance because of Nigeria’s position within Africa. Nigeria is one of the continent’s largest economies and most populous countries, which means that its policies and economic decisions inevitably have consequences beyond its national borders. When Nigeria strengthens its infrastructure, improves its investment environment, expands its financial connectivity or supports continental trade, the effects can contribute to wider African economic integration.
Delta State can become an important part of this process.
Its coastline, ports, airports, natural resources and investment opportunities provide the foundation for an economy that could connect production within Nigeria to markets across West Africa and beyond. Its blue economy, for instance, should not be considered simply as a mechanism for generating revenue for the state; it could become part of a broader regional economic network involving maritime transport, fisheries, logistics, manufacturing, tourism and international trade.
The same principle applies to Delta’s industrial and agricultural opportunities. If investment is structured with continental markets in mind, businesses established in the state can produce not merely for Nigerian consumers but for African consumers, thereby turning Delta into a productive component of the wider AfCFTA market.
This is precisely why Lumumba’s challenge for Delta to “contaminate” its neighbours with positive development is so important. The word may have been provocative, but the idea behind it is powerful: successful development should spread rather than remain isolated.
If Delta discovers an effective model for attracting investment, other Nigerian states should learn from it. If Nigeria develops successful mechanisms for facilitating African trade, other countries should be encouraged to replicate them. If regional economic cooperation produces measurable benefits, those lessons should be incorporated into the continental integration project.
Africa Does Not Need Fewer Countries; It Needs Fewer Economic Barriers
The ultimate objective of African integration should not be the destruction of national identities or the immediate creation of a single African state. Nigeria can remain Nigeria, Ghana can remain Ghana, Ethiopia can remain Ethiopia and Kenya can remain Kenya while their economies become increasingly interconnected.
The real challenge is to create an African economic environment in which national borders continue to exist but do not unnecessarily restrict legitimate economic activity.
Free movement can connect African people and labour markets, visa reform can connect investors and opportunities, infrastructure can connect producers and consumers, AfCFTA can connect national markets, PAPSS can connect financial systems, and deeper monetary cooperation can gradually bring African economies closer together.
These are not separate ambitions; they are components of the same continental architecture.
The true test of African integration will therefore not be the number of agreements signed by presidents or the number of declarations adopted at summits. It will be measured by what ordinary Africans can actually do because those agreements exist.
Can a farmer sell more easily across a neighbouring border? Can an entrepreneur establish a business in another African country without unnecessary administrative obstacles? Can a professional move where his or her skills are needed? Can an investor travel efficiently to investigate an opportunity? Can a business receive payment from another African country without excessive cost and complexity?
When the answer to these questions becomes consistently “yes,” Africa will know that integration has moved from political rhetoric to economic reality.
The Message From Asaba
PLO Lumumba’s intervention at the Delta State Economic & Investment Summit deserves to be remembered because it expanded the meaning of an investment summit beyond the immediate question of how to attract capital into one state. His message was ultimately about how African leaders can use local success to advance regional and continental transformation.
Governor Oborevwori has an opportunity to make Delta a model of subnational economic development, while Nigeria has an opportunity to demonstrate how the strength of a major African economy can be used to support a more connected continent. At the same time, the African Union and other continental institutions must continue translating the principles of AfCFTA and free movement into systems that ordinary citizens and businesses can actually use.
Africa does not necessarily need to remove every border before it can become a global economic force, but it must make those borders less expensive, less restrictive and less destructive to legitimate economic activity.
The future of Africa will ultimately be determined not simply by what each country can produce independently, but by how effectively Africans can combine their markets, capital, knowledge, skills and entrepreneurial energy.
That is why the journey Lumumba imagined from Addis Ababa to Asaba carries such powerful symbolism. It is a journey between two African cities that should represent opportunity rather than unnecessary separation, and it captures a future in which an Ethiopian investor can see Delta not as a distant foreign market but as part of an increasingly accessible African economic space.
Delta can begin the conversation, Nigeria can amplify it, and the African Union can provide the institutional framework, but the continent as a whole must ultimately decide whether it is prepared to move from the language of African unity to the practical reality of African integration.
Because Africa does not need to become one country before it can become one economic force.
It needs to become easier for Africans to move, trade, invest, work, innovate and prosper together.
That is the real message from Asaba, and perhaps the greater opportunity hidden inside Lumumba’s challenge: Africa’s greatest economic breakthrough may not come from discovering another resource, but from finally connecting the resources, people and markets it already possesses.
References
African Union. Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment.
African Union — Free Movement Protocol
African Union. African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
African Union — AfCFTA
African Development Bank. Annual Development Effectiveness Review 2026: Integrate Africa — Regional Integration and Trade.
African Development Bank — Integrate Africa
Afreximbank / PAPSS. Pan-African Payment and Settlement System.
PAPSS — Official Platform
Delta State Economic & Investment Summit 2026. Official summit and investment information.
Invest Delta — Official Summit Portal
