Nightmare for Africans traveling in Africa 

Forbes ranks Aliko Dangote as the richest man in Africa. He does business in many African countries. Yet, traveling between them, Dangote must feel like a Mexican migrant trying to navigate the bureaucratic maze between the United States and Mexico.

Nigerian-born Aliko Dangote complains he faces far more hurdles crossing Africa than visitors with European passports ever do. ‘As an investor, as someone who wants to make Africa great, I have to apply for 35 different visas on my passport,’ Dangote told the recent Africa CEO Forum in Kigali. 

‘I really don’t have the time to go and drop off my passport in embassies to get a visa,’ he said to laughter from the audience.

(CNN, May 22, 2024)

Of course, Dangote’s African audience was laughing at a Kafkaesque experience that’s all too familiar. But his complaint highlights a stark irony: Africans travel more freely in Europe than in Africa.

The question is why.

Historical roots of fratricidal angst

From tribal days through the slave trade, colonialism, and neo-colonialism, Africans have always been more fratricidal than fraternal. Tribes competed and fought constantly. 

Indeed, African tribalism made it easier for European slavers to exploit the continent. After all, Africans didn’t just welcome European slavers; they actively captured and sold their fellow Africans. 

According to the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, 35 armed conflicts are currently raging in Africa. With all due respect to Dangote, I’m not sure why that would make anyone in their right mind want to pack their bags and tour this Dark Continent. But the willingness of Africans to collaborate with foreigners over neighbors persists today, albeit in different forms. 

For perspective on travel, however, consider that there’s no greater historical distrust between nations than between Denmark and Sweden. Yet, for their citizens, travel between Denmark and Sweden is as easy as traveling between cities in their own countries. Their warring Viking ancestors must be rolling over in their graves at this comity.

Preferential treatment of foreigners

Alas, Africans still welcome marauding Whites more than fraternizing Blacks. Any Russian can travel more easily throughout Africa than Dangote or any African.

That preferential treatment mocks claims of African unity. Moreover, it betrays the colonial mentality that still plagues the continent.

Ultimately, Dangote’s travel frustration is just a symptom of deep-rooted issues. And those issues have fostered a perverse xenophobia. Only that explains why liberated South Africans treat African migrants with even greater hostility than racist Swiss do. 

It’s as if African borders were designed by Kafka and maintained by Orwell.