Togo: Presidents Faure Gnassingbé and Paul Kagame call for the breaking down of the borders that are stifling the continent
Lomé vibrated to the rhythm of a continental ambition. Gathered at the 2026 African Air Transport Convention and Exhibition, Faure Gnassingbé from Togo and Rwandan president Paul KAGAME delivered a joint and unequivocal plea: it is time for Africa to stop seeing itself as a collection of closed territories and begin to function as a unified, fluid, and sovereign space.
President Faure Gnassingbé put the right words to a paradox that has exasperated African travelers and operators for far too long: on this continent of fifty‑four nations, it is often simpler and cheaper to reach Paris or London than a neighboring capital.
An absurdity inherited from decades of economic fragmentation, which the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) is precisely intended to correct.
For the Togolese President of the Council, this endeavor goes far beyond the aeronautical sphere.
It is a project of sovereignty, a reclamation by Africa of its own geography too long organized for the benefit of external routes and interests.
President Paul Kagame, for his part, did not come with speeches but with an example.
Rwanda has removed visa restrictions for all African nationals, demonstrating that clear political will can turn what seemed utopian into reality.
A model that the Rwandan president invites his peers to consider and replicate.
Behind these converging positions lies a shared conviction: without real air connectivity, without free movement of people and goods, continental integration will remain a pipe dream.
African skies, still fragmented and underutilized, may well become the next great frontier for the conquest of African sovereignty.
Chantal TAWELESSI
