The Kenyan President has called upon African governments to allow free movement of Africans all across the continent.
Speaking during an official visit to Addis Ababa, where he met with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Sahle-Work Zewde, President Kenyatta said all Africans are brothers and sisters.
“There is need for our people to be allowed to travel throughout the African continent freely without any hindrances, since we are all brothers and sisters with a common heritage as Africans,” Kenyatta said.
This was Kenyatta’s second visit to Ethiopia, having attended the 32nd AU Heads of State and Governments Summit in Addis Ababa in early February. President Kenyatta has in the past called for the removal of passport requirements for Africans saying it would open up the region economically and in 2017 he issued a directive for all Africans traveling to Kenya to receive a visa at the port.
For some time now, African governments have been deliberating on how best to implement a proposed roll-out of an African passport, which would see Africans move across the continent without any hindrances.
The Pan-African passport was launched in July 2016, at the opening ceremony of the 27th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the AU, in Kigali.
Chadian President and then Chairperson of the AU, Idriss Deby, and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame received the first passports from the then Chairperson of the AU Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Earlier this year, the AU said it would provide details of the production and issuance of the African passport, which would be used by the continent’s over 1.2 billion people.
Other than supporting the removal of boundaries across Africa,
