In a 2025 interview, Abubakar Zein reflected on East African integration as part of a much larger Pan-African ambition: building a continent that is united, peaceful, self-reliant and able to shape its own future. While the East African Community had developed an ambitious framework for economic and political integration, he said, colonial borders, state-centred nationalism, limited public awareness and weak enforcement continued to constrain its promise.
Yet Zein saw reason for hope in the relationships already being built among East Africans. People traded, moved, organized and expressed solidarity across borders, he noted, often moving faster than political institutions themselves. The future of integration, he argued, therefore depended on making it genuinely people-centred—expanding citizen participation, protecting regional rights and creating space for women, youth, civil society and marginalized communities to shape the region.
Ultimately, he argued, integration should be judged not simply by treaties or institutions, but by whether it advances dignity, human rights, self-reliance, food security, decent livelihoods, peace and a stronger sense of shared East African and African identity.