On 12th December 2023, President William Ruto of Kenya declared that Kenya would be it was a free country beginning January 2024. There was a lot of excitement across Africa about this announcement as many consider this to be a good and exciting progress towards free movement of Africans.
A lot of people who follow our borderless Africa campaign suggested that we made a public statement commending president Ruto for such a move. I said to them, let’s wait and see the implementation because if you know president Ruto, he gives traffic indicator for the right and then takes a left turn.
Lo and behold here we are March 2024 and Kenya is not visa free for Africans. There were two clues in the statement that the president made that many people did not pay attention to
- He mentioned that Kenya’s visa-free applied to everybody from everywhere in the world, not just Africans first stop. This was the first indication that the intention was not what we thought.
- He again mentioned that travelers would seek and receive an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) before entering Kenya.
Fellow Africans, Ruto’s electronic travel authorization (ETA) is a visa with another name. Let me tell you my experience. Before the introduction of that ETA, I did not need visa to travel to Kenya nor did I need to fill any forms or pay any money for anything just my flight tickets.
This was the case with about 21 countries in Africa whose passports did not need any visa to enter Kenya. However, for my trip to Kenya in 2024, I had to apply for the electronic travel authorization and pay a fee of $34 U.S. dollars.
The application required every information that a visa requires. After you have applied you can get your authorization within 72 hours or more but without it you cannot travel to Kenya, the airline will not even allow you to board the plane.
These are all features of a visa. So Africans were deceived by William Ruto and the ETA is a visa. All those countries that did not need visa to enter Kenya based on bilateral agreements now have to obtain this visa before they can enter Kenya. Certain countries in the East African Community and a couple in Southern Africa are exempted from paying the fees but still have to apply.
This is a retrogression. We must call on the Kenya government to reverse this policy, which is a new form of restriction on free movement in Africa and an obstacle to a #BorderlessAfrica.
