President John Dramani Mahama has identified inadequate transport and logistics infrastructure as a major obstacle to trade among African countries, attributing the challenge largely to the continent’s colonial history.

Speaking during an exclusive end-of-visit interview with JoyNews’ Maxwell Agbagba and a Zambian journalist, President Mahama said Africa’s roads, railways and broader transport systems were designed primarily to serve colonial economic interests, facilitating the export of raw materials to Europe rather than promoting trade within the continent.

According to him, this historical legacy continues to undermine efforts at regional integration and economic cooperation across Africa.

“The third challenge is the logistics for moving goods among African countries,” he said. “Because of our colonial experience, the railway lines, the roads and everything were designed in a way to export to Europe and other places and not to ourselves.”

President Mahama noted that road networks linking neighbouring African countries remain poorly developed, making cross-border trade both difficult and expensive.

“You will find that between two countries, even the road network is poor. If I wanted to export goods to Senegal or Morocco, the road between Ghana and Senegal hardly exists. In some places, it is a death trap,” he stated.

He argued that such conditions were not accidental, but rather a reflection of an infrastructure system that was never intended to support intra-African trade.

“We were not meant to trade among ourselves. We were meant to trade with our colonisers, and so the logistics were not there,” he added.

President Mahama stressed that addressing these challenges would require deliberate and sustained investment in modern infrastructure that directly connects African countries.

He called for expanded railway networks capable of transporting heavy cargo at lower cost, alongside improved road systems linking countries across the continent.

“There must be trains going everywhere, where we can carry heavy cargo more cheaply. There must be roads interconnecting our countries,” he said. “If we are able to put in that infrastructure, the trade network will develop.”

His comments come at a time when African leaders are seeking to deepen economic integration through initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which aims to boost intra-African trade and reduce dependence on external markets.

President Mahama suggested that without substantial improvements in logistics and transport infrastructure, the full benefits of such initiatives would remain limited.