Larry Madowo, the CNN presenter, took to Twitter to highlight the need for more integration between African nations as he vented his frustrations about the absence of visa-free travel within the continent while travelling to Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Landed in Abuja for the final trip of the year – 4th time in Nigeria in 2023.
I’ve spent $800 on Nigerian visas this year, each single entry. Why do Africans still need visas to travel in Africa? pic.twitter.com/5bEIphKoO7
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) December 30, 2023
The Kenyan correspondent touched on a subject that has had many prominent advocates over the years ranging from the Jamaican Marcus Garvey to Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. We at Naijiant.com have also weighed in on the issue of dispensing with colonial borders and more African integration.
But Madowo’s tweet laid it bare with remarkable accuracy and simplicity. He replied to his first tweet with another zinger and wish for the coming year:
I wish you a visa-free 2024, dear children of the colonized. And cheap flights
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) December 30, 2023
Madowo is spot-on about the colonial legacy of division and artificial boundaries. As we argued in the article above: Why was most of Africa conquered with relative ease by colonisers? A stronger force came to loot the continent’s resources and there was little pan-African consciousness among the natives. Very few Africans saw how the defeat of one group by Europeans posed a threat to the next group. The Europeans had a unity of purpose, and carved up the continent amongst themselves at the Berlin Conference so that they didn’t have to fight each other over the spoils from Africa. But there was no unity among the people at threat. Even among Igbos in pre-colonial Nigeria there was no pan-Igbo awareness that would have made the different Igbo clans unite against the invaders. Or see what the conquest of one clan meant for the freedoms of the other groups. The Europeans knew this and played one community against the next. Ever since, divide and rule, playing one group against the other, has been deployed to maintain the status quo.
In another tweet, Madowo called the absence of visa-free travel a “nightmare” and “own goals”.
To go to Chad from Kenya, I had to first fly to Ethiopia to apply for a visa. It takes a day or two or more to process, there’s no way to predict.
You can’t apply online or get a visa on arrival. Intra-Africa travel is a nightmare because of own goals like this pic.twitter.com/gN6YDxhrGw
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) June 21, 2023
This is why another great advocate for a united Africa, Bob Marley urged Africa to “unite for the benefit of your people”.
