A Visa-Free Africa: How Will It Benefit Nigerians?
By December 31, 2023, all Africans can book a trip and enter Kenya without the need for a visa, according to Kenya’s President, William Ruto, who made the announcement during the recent climate change conference in Congo-Brazzaville.
As intra-Africa flight has increased on the continent, Africa remains one of the regions with the highest visa restrictions, restricting not only the movement of people but also the free flow of trade.
“It is time we realise that having visa restrictions amongst ourselves is working against us. When people cannot travel, businesspeople cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers,” Ruto said at the conference.
According to the Africa Development Bank Group, obtaining business visas is more difficult than tourist visas. This is despite the fact that the number of arrivals to the continent’s destinations (and especially intra-African flights) has shown the highest growth globally over the years.
Since 2013, when the World Economic Forum projected that improving visa facilitation could add $206 billion to the tourism sector alone and create 5.1 million new jobs within two years in the G20 countries, Africans have grappled with the challenge of relaxing their visa laws to aid the ease of doing business.
Free business transactions are restricted by borders as the cost of delay in applying for a visa continues to increase tariffs on the cost of goods.
On average, African citizens require visas to visit 60 percent of African countries, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé, and Sudan requiring citizens from every single African country to apply for a visa.
Nigeria, which shares borders with Cameroon and Chad in the East, requires a visa to enter these countries notwithstanding the proximity between the two countries and the potential economic benefits both nations can gain if restrictions are relaxed.
Interestingly, there appears to be increased effort for restrictions to be relaxed.
Just weeks after Kenya’s president announced that the country would remove visa restrictions for all Africans, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, during the 23rd Global Summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council on November 3, 2023.
“Any African can get on a plane to Rwanda whenever they wish, and they will not pay a thing to enter our country,” Kagame said.
Free visas for all Africans can have enormous benefits for Nigerian entrepreneurs who will not contend with the cost of acquiring visas for their business trips. If more African countries follow the line of Rwanda, Kenya, Gambia, Benin, and Seychelles (that already operates a free-visa regime for all African nations), business in Nigeria stands a better chance of thriving.
Damilare Akanni, a financial expert, said that the liberalisation of visas in Africa will widen labor markets.
“Visa liberalisation will increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of such countries through access to human capital (Labour) and tourist attractions which will also attract investors to such countries,” he said.
For instance, in 2019, travel and tourism created 3.36 million jobs and accounted for ₦8 trillion of Nigeria’s revenue. International visitors who entered the country within that period spent ₦654 billion, according to UNWTO Economic Impact Reports.
Just like the Schengen Visa, which allows individuals to travel freely within the Schengen Area – a zone comprising 27 European countries, the African Union, through its Agenda 2063, aims to achieve an “integrated continent, politically united and based on the ideals of Pan-Africanism.”
However, political scientist Dr. Robert Ekat says that although a visa-free Africa might not achieve the unification of the political ideologies of the member states and reduce the recent spate of coups, it nonetheless offers “huge prospects for Africa’s integration and economy.”
“Africans and African countries can only enjoy the benefits of the region if they dismantle all barriers to business, including ease of traveling across countries,” he said.
If the aim of an Africa without border restrictions is achieved, Nigeria stands to benefit hugely if the travel and tourism sector receives better attention than it does.
Akanni believes that the capacity for Nigeria to be a visa-free country is not yet properly developed.
“There are benefits we can derive but proper infrastructure should be put in place. We need to create more tourist centers and attractions even without Nigeria being visa-free,” he said.
