Visa Barriers and Flight Gaps Are Limiting Nigeria’s AfCFTA Gains, Analysts Warn

Two policy analysts have warned that visa restrictions and poor air connectivity across Africa are blocking trade, limiting labour mobility and weakening the economic promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), with Nigeria among the countries most affected.

Habibah A. Waziri and Oswald Osaretin Guobadia argued that cross-border movement should be treated as core economic infrastructure rather than a narrow travel issue. They said professionals and entrepreneurs on the continent still face major administrative barriers that raise the cost of doing business and delay time-sensitive deals.

They opened with a familiar line, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything,” then contrasted that with the practical experience of travelling on a Nigerian passport. In their view, policy language often celebrates a borderless digital economy, but real movement between African countries remains difficult, uncertain and expensive.

Their argument links mobility directly to Nigeria’s long-term position on the continent. Nigeria, they noted, is projected to become the world’s third most populous nation by 2050 and already carries significant economic and cultural weight in Africa. Yet the country’s professionals still operate within what they described as a fragmented air and visa system that keeps African markets close in theory but far in practice.

Citing mobility data, the writers said 72 per cent of intra-African travel still requires a visa. They also pointed to a passport access gap, saying a Singaporean passport holder can enter around four times more destinations without extensive bureaucracy than a Nigerian passport holder. According to them, this creates what they called a domestic-only penalty in career outcomes. Their data, they said, shows that a pan-African consultant can earn up to five times more than a professional restricted to one domestic market, with mobility, not competence, often driving the difference.

To illustrate this friction, they described a recent five-day itinerary across three African countries that required repeated transits through Europe to avoid long layovers and visa bottlenecks. The route, they said, moved from Lagos to Europe and back into Africa several times, highlighting how internal African travel can remain less direct than intercontinental travel.

They said these barriers create a heavier burden for women in leadership. While women’s attrition at senior levels is often tied to culture and unpaid care work, they argued that infrastructure constraints are also decisive. A trip that should take 48 hours can stretch into weeks when consular processes, route design and unclear rules combine. In many organisations, they said, decision-makers then choose whoever can travel with less friction, reducing women’s regional visibility and influence over time.

The analysts described this as an economic loss, not only a representation issue. They said women account for up to 70 per cent of informal cross-border trade, yet face some of the highest barriers to formal movement. If this pattern continues, they argued, countries are effectively capping growth and reducing taxable formal activity.

They contrasted those constraints with the scale of AfCFTA’s ambition: a single continental market with more than one billion people and a multi-trillion-dollar economy. They noted that projections for full implementation by 2035 include very large income gains and significant poverty reduction. They also stressed that AfCFTA is not only about goods. It covers services, including temporary movement of persons to provide services across borders, often discussed in trade law as Mode 4.

In practice, however, they said tariff discussions usually move faster than non-tariff reforms such as visa policy, regulatory alignment and route development. This leaves the continent externally connected but internally constrained. They argued that it can still be easier for an African founder to meet an investor in Paris than to meet a customer in a neighbouring African country, even when both opportunities relate to African growth.

As a remedy, they proposed a trusted traveller framework for business mobility across participating African states. Under that model, businesspersons and other value creators would register once, undergo digital identity and credential checks, and be assessed through a shared but sovereign-respecting review process. Approved travellers would then use a recognised digital credential across multiple jurisdictions, with clear rules for monitoring and revocation where necessary.

They said such a system would allow, for example, a business trip from Lagos to Kigali, Nairobi and Addis Ababa without repeating full consular processes at every stage. That could improve route planning for airlines, reduce non-productive waiting time and move professionals from queues into meetings, factories and project sites.

The writers acknowledged that several building blocks already exist, including AfCFTA technical work, regional visa initiatives, labour mobility programmes, digital identity efforts and investments in African startup ecosystems. Their concern is that these efforts often run in parallel without enough institutional coordination.

They called for what they described as a “Big Tent” approach that brings together continental bodies, national governments, development finance institutions, investors and private-sector operators to treat mobility as shared industrial policy. They said stronger convergence could help deliver common standards that work in large and smaller markets alike, including Lagos, Lusaka, Abuja and Abidjan.

With International Women’s Day approaching on March 8, the analysts said the continent should also account for women who never arrive at key negotiating tables because travel systems filter them out before opportunity begins. In their view, unlocking AfCFTA’s full upside requires practical mobility corridors that allow African professionals, especially women in leadership, to move with dignity, predictability and purpose.