What if exile could be more than just uprooting, and instead become a geographical and political rebirth? For journalist Baba Alpha, the asphalt of West Africa has replaced the comfort of office corridors, and dusty buses have become travelling newsrooms under the open sky. Travelling from Bamako to Lomé via Ouagadougou and Accra, he crossed borders and much more besides. He dismantled the rigid lines of a paper map to uncover a living, breathing regional reality. In this poignant account, we discover a man who, instead of surrendering to the paralysis of exile, embraces movement as a way to redefine his identity. Through his experiences of porous borders and spontaneous acts of solidarity, Baba Alpha encourages us to view Africa not as a fragmented mosaic, but as a dynamic space already in motion and integrating.
When the road becomes the newsroom
Having had his ties to Niger cut in April 2018 and then been expelled to Mali, Baba Alpha refuses to stay put. He has travelled by bus and minibus through Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. This journey of asphalt and dust has reshaped his perception of political geography.
“My first big lesson came from the road. By travelling amongst the people, I realised that administrative boundaries have little impact on their daily lives,” he explains. He believes that official cartography does not accurately reflect the reality of organic exchanges. “Africa is a united bloc where borders are just traces on a map.”
The example of Lomé: the invisible line and the West’s renunciation
One stop on his journey stands out in particular: the Togolese capital, Lomé. Here, the concept of national sovereignty is blurred by the proximity of neighbourhoods. The border with Ghana is not a physical barrier, but merely a domestic threshold.
In Lomé, the border with Ghana is an abstract concept. In neighbourhoods such as Casablanca and Ghana-Me, inhabitants experience natural integration. “You can take one step into Togo and the next into Ghana without even realising it,” the journalist observes.
He observes the fusion of economies and technologies in practice: ‘Togolese and Nigerians live in Ghana while conducting their economic activities in Lomé. The telephone networks of the two countries overlap, as do the nationalities.” For Baba Alpha, this daily reality transcends political boundaries: “People cross over every day to work in the morning and return home in the evening.”
Baba Alpha’s exile could have turned out differently. During his five years of wandering, the doors to Europe and North America opened slightly. He received offers to settle in Belgium, Canada and the United States. At one point, he had even started to compile his application files.
However, the journalist eventually changed his mind. “As I travelled from one African country to another, my outlook changed. I ended up giving up on the idea of distant exile. This decision was prompted by a profound awakening to the potential of our continent,” he says.
Looking back, he does not regret choosing West Africa over Western cities. “I wanted to stay so that I could continue to understand and experience the Africa that I didn’t really know before I was forced to leave. Today, I am proud that I stayed.”
Justice without passport
Baba Alpha encountered public opinion that transcended geographical boundaries. Wherever he went, people recognised him and knew his story. This elevated his status from exile to that of witnessing spontaneous African solidarity first-hand.
“My story was widely reported in the media, and I was struck by the welcome I received wherever I went. People recognised me even in countries where I thought I was a complete stranger,” he recalls.
He encountered not only sympathy, but also a shared sense of justice that transcends national affiliations. ‘I witnessed a visceral rejection of injustice among Africans. Even people with no connection to Niger were stunned and outraged by my story. This spontaneous solidarity showed me that everyone fights injustice, regardless of nationality.”
Baba Alpha’s story ends with a magnificent paradox: exile took everything from him, yet ultimately offered him an entire continent’s worth of space. By rejecting the allure of the West in favour of the dusty trails of the Sahel and the coast, he teaches us a valuable lesson in personal sovereignty. His journey demonstrates that true freedom does not lie in the power of a foreign passport, but in the capacity to feel at home on either side of an imaginary border. As a citizen of a seamless Africa, he embodies a justice that transcends visas. His story reminds us of an important truth: as long as people disregard colonial borders, Africa will remain an indivisible entity, strengthened by its rediscovered solidarity.
