African countries must stop being distrustful of one another

Some many years ago, I was scheduled to speak at an engagement in another African country, about three thousand kilometers from my home in Uganda. The destination was one of those countries where my Ugandan passport cannot accord me free entry and I had to get a travel visa before commencing the trip. I went to their Ugandan embassy to get that done. I have not experienced the kind of rudeness in a corporate environment, anywhere else, as I did in that office. The personnel were extremely raw. They also informed me verbally that visa applications were taking a bit longer to approve during that period, for some administrative reasons.

To cut the long story short, the visa approval process took so long that by the time I got their response- the event I was supposed to speak at had passed. The application was of course declined on the basis that the event had already happened and I was advised that I could appeal the decision of the approving authority if I deemed it fit. Needless to say, I did not require the visa anymore by the time I received this feedback. Neither would I have appealed their decision even if the event I was to attend was still months ahead. The particular situation would not make sense. I just wondered how much money is collected in visa application fees in scenarios like that, from Africans seeking to travel to another African country to which many distant foreigners are welcome to go, without need of a visa.

Now recently, I saw people expressing shock that some African countries had banned travel from other African countries on the basis of a new corona virus strain that had been flagged. While I agreed that it was possibly unjustified for African countries to quickly ban sister countries for travel purposes, the scenario of the complaints by the banned countries took my mind to existing travel barriers within our continent without any contribution from the fear of the corona virus pandemic.

I think it is more ludicrous that Africans cannot easily travel to some African countries in normal times, than that travel bans can be put in place between African countries on the basis of a scare of a repeat wave of the corona virus pandemic. At least the pandemic repeat is justifiably to be feared because we need no reminders of its potential danger to life. The mere entry of Africans from one country into another during ordinary times, on the other hand, need not be feared at all.  Routine intra-Africa travel bureaucracy simply indicates that we do not take one another as seriously as we should. No wonder the rest of the world may not regard us highly either.

While there is improvement from what things have been in the past, by 2020, Africans still needed visas to travel to forty six percent of other African countries on average. They could travel to twenty eight percent of other African countries on visa-on-arrival basis and to twenty six percent destinations, visa-free. 

In recent times, African leaders have come up with initiatives meant to further consolidate the oneness required for the continent to move forward. These include the African Continental Free Trade Area, Single African Air Transport Market, and Protocol on Free Movement of Persons.  The African Continental Free Trade Area aims at accelerating intra-African trade and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa’s common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations. The Single African Air Transport Market is meant to create a single unified air transport market in Africa, liberalize civil aviation and drive the continent’s economic integration agenda.

The Protocol on Free Movement of Persons is meant to facilitate implementation of the treaty establishing the African Economic Community by providing for the progressive implementation of free movement of persons, right of residence and right of establishment in Africa. By 2020, only sixty one percent of the African countries had ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area. Equally, only sixty one percent of the countries had agreed to join the Single African Air Transport Market. An even smaller fifty nine percent of the countries had signed the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons.

While the above initiatives must be celebrated and even the progress on pursuing them appreciated, their status of implementation should also trigger self-reflection about why Africans exhibit wariness about one another. One imagines that such initiatives would sail through and countries would be signing them off without a moment’s hesitation since their strategic advantages are obvious. As it is though, we appear suspicious of one another.

Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant

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