Africa’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote, has expressed frustration with the challenges of travelling in Africa using his Nigerian passport.
The billionaire mogul while speaking at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, Rwanda said, “I still complained to President Kagame. I told him that as an investor, I have to now apply for 35 different visas on my passport, and I told Mr. President, I really don’t have the time to go and be dropping my passports in embassies to get a visa.
“But you see, the most annoying thing is that yes, if you are treating everybody the same, then I can understand.”
Referring to the French Passport, Dangote mentioned that the chairman of Total Energies, Patrick Pouyanne, does not need 35 visas to access African countries.
“You don’t need 35 visas on your French passport. This means you have a freer movement than myself in Africa,” he said.
“Our main job is to make sure the regional markets all work. Once they work, then we can now go to the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). But then, for AfCFTA also, we need to make sure that it works”.
“We cannot have a very promising continent and our intra-trade rate is less than 16 percent. Okay, so we Africans will have to do it. If we are waiting for foreigners to come and do it, the development of Africa is not going to happen.
“So it can only happen to us Africans. We must risk our sources and make sure that we lead, then we will have people who actually trust and believe in Africa like Patrick to come and help us to push to the next level.”
Furthermore, he mentioned that Nigeria will no longer need to import petrol by June, as the Dangote refinery will start producing the product.