WELCOME ADDRESS BY HIGH CHIEF IBRAHIM EDDY MARK PRESIDENT AFRICAN BAR ASSOCIATION DURING THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 2025 ANNUAL CONFERENCE AT ACCRA, GHANA ON 20TH OCTOBER, 2025.
Protocols
Distinguished colleagues, eminent guests, learned friends, esteemed delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
It is with great honor and humility that I welcome you to the 2025 Annual Conference of AFBA. This gathering provides us once again the unique opportunity to reflect, interrogate, and engage on issues that profoundly affect our continent, our people and indeed our future.
Our chosen theme for this year, “Foreign Interests in Africa – Investment or Exploitation,” is not only timely but deeply compelling. Africa stands today at a crossroads. On the one hand, we are courted as the last frontier of global economic growth, endowed with vast natural and human resources. On the other hand, we continue to grapple with questions of sovereignty, dignity, equity, and justice in our dealings with the outside world.
Foreign Investment or Modern Exploitation?
We must ask ourselves: do foreign investments truly build African economies or do they entrench dependence and exploitation? The exploitation of our minerals, oil, gas, and even agricultural products often leaves behind environmental degradation, poor wages, and shattered communities. True partnership must be built on fairness, respect for local laws, and genuine value addition within Africa.
Security and Travel Restrictions.
Equally, we cannot ignore the security challenges, across our continent-terrorism, piracy, transnational crime, and instability – which are sometimes exacerbated by foreign interference. Added to this are discriminatory visa regimes and travel restrictions that make movement within and outside Africa a herculean task for our professionals, business people, and students. Africa must advocate for reciprocal treatment in global travel and call for policies that do not criminalize or stigmatize African identity.
Intra-African Trade and Migration
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) remains a beacon of hope, yet it cannot thrive while artificial barriers remain. Migration within Africa must be seen not as a threat but as a strength. Our people have always moved, traded, and shared knowledge across borders. Let us modernise our travel policy to reflect this reality.
Transportation: Sea, Air and Land.
Our connectivity –whether by sea, air, or land-remains weak compared to our potential. Foreign airlines dominate our skies while African carriers struggle to survive. Our ports are largely controlled by foreign entities, dictating trade terms that disadvantage our economies. We must invest in our own transportation networks and demand fairness in global maritime and aviation regulations.
Labour and Fair Wages.
Too many African workers labour under poor and unfair conditions-be it in mines, farms, or factories- under foreign managed enterprises. This is unacceptable. Economic partnerships must translate into fair wages, decent work conditions, and respect for labour rights. The African Bar Association will continue to champion legal frameworks that protect workers’ dignity.
Sports and Youth Development
We must also remember that foreign interests extend beyond economics into culture and sports. Our young talents – footballers, athletes, creative – are too often exploited abroad without adequate protection. Africa must build stronger institutions to manage sports, protect our athletes, and ensure that their success benefits their families and communities back home.
The lion is not known by the stories others tell, but by the roar it makes itself. We must protect and empower our youths to roar for Africa.
AES States.
African Bar Association firmly believes that African States should always be united in tackling the issues that confront them. Furthermore, it believes that where unity is challenged, peaceful and amiable means are the best approaches to seeking restoration of that unity. Accordingly AFBA supports the approaches of the current ECOWAS leadership and our host, His Excellency the president of Ghana in tackling the matter of the departure of the AES states: Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from the Economic Community of West African stated (ECOWAS). The region’s strength lies in unity, cooperation, and shared development. No challenge, however serious, should divide or separate members permanently
While the grievances that led to their withdrawal – including issues of governance, justice, and mutual respect – must be honestly addressed, isolation is not the answer, dialogue, reform, and reconciliation are.
A united ECOWAS is essential for collective security, regional trade, the free movement of people and the defense of democracy and the rule of law. Fragmentation only weakens ECOWAS position globally and hampers Africa’s integration goals under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
AFBA is willing and ready to assist with the peaceful resolution of this challenge to unity in West Africa and indeed any similar situation in other regions of Africa. AFBA has helped to resolve conflicts before -in the Gambia and Burundi to mention a few- and is willing to do so this time and anytime it is invited to assist.
The African Bar Association calls for genuine engagement, humility, and compromise from all sides. West Africa must stand as one family again – stronger, fairer, and more united.
Visa-Free Travel for Africans
Trade and integration have one thing in common. They involve movement of people, goods and services. They are hampered by undue restrictions to movement. The time has come for Africa to remove the artificial barriers that separate its own people. The African Bar Association calls for Visa-Free Travel across the continent for holders of passports of African States.
Freedom of movement is not a privilege – it is a right and a necessity for building the Africa we envision. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfFCTA), the African Union Agenda 2063, and ECOWAS protocols all rest on the principle of integration – but integration cannot exist when Africans still need visas to visit their brothers and sisters next door.
Visa restrictions hinder trade, education, tourism, cultural exchange, and regional cooperation. They also send the wrong signal – that Africa is still divided by colonial-era borders and mistrust.
A Visa-Free Africa would:
- Boost Intra-African trade and investment,
- Strengthen cultural and professional exchange,
- Encourage regional tourism and transport development,
- Enhance continental solidarity and peace.
The African Bar Association therefore urges African leaders and regional blocs to implement a single African visa policy, starting with mutual visa waivers for all African Union members.
True independence increase the freedom for Africans to move, work, and live anywhere in Africa without restriction.
The Role of the African Bar Association
Colleagues, distinguished guests, the African Bar Association stands at the forefront of the struggle for development and improvement of Africa. As lawyers, we are defenders of justice, custodians of rights, and voices for the voiceless. We must interrogate exploitative contracts, challenge unfair trade agreements, and ensure that Africa engages with the World from a position of dignity, sovereignty, and strength.
In conclusion, let this conference be more than a meeting of minds. Let it be a rallying call to action – to ensure that foreign interests in Africa do not lead to exploitation but to genuine investment, development, and empowerment for Africa and her people.
Foreign investment must mean more than extraction. It must build industries here in Africa, create jobs for our people, and respect our environment. If it does not, then it is not investment – it is exploitation.
As one African proverb goes, “when the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind”. The time has come for Africa to dig deep into her own strength and negotiate from a position of dignity.
I most profoundly welcome delegates and our esteemed guests to Accra, Ghana, a leading country in Africa with rich history of a respectful home for all.
This conference promises to meet the expectation of the attendees to the well-known hospitality of the people of Ghana.
I thank you all for your presence, your dedication, and your commitment to the noble ideals of justice and progress for Africa.
HIGH CHIEF IBRAHIM EDDY MARK
PRESIDENT
AFRICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
Watch video of the opening ceremony.
