The son of Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, Dr Julius Garvey, has called on African countries to move towards a federated system of government, saying the continent's division into 55 independent states is slowing the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Dr Garvey made the call on Friday, June 19, 2026, when he addressed the Juneteenth Commemorative Durbar at Christiansborg Castle at Osu in Accra.
The event brought together President John Dramani Mahama, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, traditional leaders, diplomats and other invited guests from Africa and the Caribbean.
Dr Garvey, a surgeon who said he was representing civil society organisations in the United States, argued that Africa needed stronger political and economic integration to realise the full benefits of the AfCFTA.
"For the free trade agreement to work, we have to move towards a federated government," he said.
He added that, at the very least, Africa should establish a common economic, monetary and financial system that would allow the free movement of goods, electricity, rail transport and road transport across the continent.
Dr Garvey said Africa could draw lessons from China's economic transformation over the past 40 years, although he acknowledged that China's historical circumstances differed from those of African countries because it had not experienced colonial rule in the same way.
He said Africa's future depended on bringing together the continent's estimated 1.5 billion people and about 500 million people of African descent living in the diaspora.
According to Dr Garvey, about 60 per cent of Africa's population is below the age of 25. He also said projections indicate that by the end of this century, one in every three people in the world will be African. Those figures were cited by Dr Garvey and have not been independently verified.
Referring to his father's legacy, Dr Garvey said the gathering represented "a continuation of the work that my father started more than 100 years ago."
He said Marcus Garvey's philosophy had influenced Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and expressed satisfaction with what he described as the country's continued pursuit of Pan-African ideals.
Dr Garvey also said Prime Minister Mottley had inaugurated a direct flight route between Lagos and Barbados. That claim could not be independently verified.
He expressed the hope that shipping links between Africa and the Caribbean would also be revived, drawing inspiration from the Black Star Line established by Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth century.
Dr Garvey described Ghana as an important gateway to Africa for people of African descent living abroad and said he hoped the country would continue to strengthen opportunities for the diaspora to invest and participate in the continent's development.
He ended his address by calling for what he described as a new multipolar world order founded on African values of humanism, which he contrasted with what he called a Western model centred on materialism and technology.
