“I need 38 visas to travel round Africa,” Dangote

What’s the heck in applying for 38 different visas to travel round Africa? I guess your answers would be “It’s frustrating!” “Ridiculous!” “Time wasting!” “Unnecessary formalities!” But the reality is that Africans face lots of travel restrictions at their borders, except those from the West African Community who enjoy free access with their neighbours.

Imagine the frustration in filing multiple cross border documents with visa issuance becoming a nuisance and hindrance even to business development, tourism and investments among African people.

Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian tycoon and the richest man in this continent is among key personalities facing traveling hiccups when moving from one country to another in search of investment opportunities.

In his recent interaction with the media, Dangote advised African leaders to give incentives to investors and make intra-Africa travel easy. He said despite the size of his group and investments on the continent, he needs 38 visas to travel across Africa.

“You have to know somebody who is big in that country to call somebody. They are giving you visas as if it is a favor,” Dangote said.

“Somebody like me, despite the size of our group, I need 38 visas to move around Africa. Yes, I have heard that they are going to do the (African) passport, but you can see that there is still a little bit of resistance from other African leaders,” he noted.

The ridiculous part of it is when “you go to a country that is looking for investment, but that particular country gives you a runaround just to get a visa” before you are admitted. To a man who only reckons with economic development by investing his hard earned money, you’d be wasting his time if you want him runaround for visa. What if he backs up? You’d sure lose the potential benefits.

This is why removal of intra-Africa travel restrictions has become a paramount issue of discourse among travel experts.

During their Fourth Annual Africa Hotel Expansion Summit and Hospitality Round Table in the Tanzanian commercial city of Dares Salaam last month, hotel and hospitality industry executives noted that Africa needs to establish intra-Africa travel packages to attract tourists within the continent.

“Africa needs to encourage intra-Africa travel programs that would attract more people to travel from one country to another country within the continent,” said  Amaechi Ndili, President and Chief Executive Officer of  Lionstone  Group and Golden Tulip West Africa Hospitality Group in Nigeria.

“We need to stimulate intra-Africa tourism and business travel while governments across the continent take serious steps and policies to create more open skies for Africans,” Ndili noted.

But of course, there has to be some agenda setting, deliberations, harmonisation of thoughts and lobbying among African states under the umbrella of African Union, having proposed a single passport for all Africans and working toward approving visa on arrival for travelers by 2020. However, the timeframe appears too long for such a laudable achievement.

And while the project is at its gestation stage, some African countries are proving resistant to its progress. According to the African Development Bank, 75 percent of the most visa-friendly countries in Africa are in the Eastern region.

In Southern Africa, the visa-friendly nations are Mauritius, Madagascar, Zambia and Mozambique. However, the South African country itself has high cases of travel resistance to noncitizens.

West Africa fares better with six countries regarded as visa-friendly, while the remaining ten aren’t friendly, including Nigeria.

Irrespective of the alluring tourist attractions, Africa still rates high in underdevelopment, unemployment, poverty and poor security, ebbing low in global tourism index.

“Africa’s mountains, savannahs and rivers, and cultural events such as music, dance and festivals are far above the natural assets found in other regions,” said Iain Christie of the World Bank. According to her, with these natural attributes, tourism can play an enormous role in development. But to do so, it must be integrated into each country’s economy and government structure and be seen as a benefit by everyone.

Unfortunately, reports have shown that more than 80 percent of Africans don’t know tourist attractive sites available in their own countries compared to Europe, America and other continents where the citizens outnumber foreign tourists.

Nigeria is the leading country in Africa to generate outbound tourists to other countries within the continent, mostly to other West African states, East and Southern Africa.

Dangote’s comments were made at the right time when tourism and travel executives are set to meet in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali next month to discuss the future of African tourism and the way forward.

Bearing a theme of  “Destination Africa: The Future of African Tourism”, the African Travel Association 41st Congress will be held in Kigali from November 14  to 18, bringing delegates from Africa, United States, Europe and other parts of the world.

Could this be a platform to usher in new strategies or resolutions that will remove all travel barriers between African states?

The passport, being a symbolic move for integration among African states, free air connectivity will drive the motive to success. A combination of the two would facilitate tourism, more trade, more transactions and business undertakings for many Dangotes as the continent eases intra-Africa travels.

When this happens, the relevance of the AU would equal or surpass that of the EU as there would be little or no travel restrictions for all Africans.