Ruto revives Pan-Africanism with push to abolish visa restrictions

President William Ruto is a man on a mission. Ruto has seemingly set his sights on reawakening the Pan-African dream lost in decades past.

The late former Presidents Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) and President Muammar Gaddafi (Libya) were among champions of pan Africanism, which put them at loggerheads with the West.

Ruto is perhaps walking in the footsteps of the fathers of Pan Africanism and is intent on ensuring visa free Africa, a move that is inline with his rallying call for a borderless continent to allow free movement of people and goods.

Speaking during Uganda’s 60th Independence Day celebrations in Kampala, recently the President said the East African Community (EAC) will only achieve its potential if it eliminates restrictions at the borders inhibiting free trade and movement of citizens.

“There is need to work together to eliminate the borders and turn them into bridges so we can better harness the opportunities in our continent for trade and investment,” he said.

The President said EAC should lead the way towards the realisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

During a visit to Comoros and Congo-Brazzaville last week Ruto spoke about the need to have an inward looking Africa.

Just like the other 11 African countries that he has visited, he removed visa requirements for the nationals wishing to visit Kenya.

“I give you a commitment that Kenya shall abolish the requirement of visas for all persons holding valid travel documents issued by the Union of the Comoros into Kenya, before the end of 2023,” he said.

He called on African states to empower the Pan-African Parliament to manage key affairs of the continent.

Ruto who has been in office for 10 months has visited 13 African countries including Comoros, DRC, Somalia, Djibouti, Senegal, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo Brazzaville and Sychelles, where he awarded student scholarships and said nationals of the countries will now study in Kenya, at the same cost as local students.

In his speech in Paris, France, a month ago, Ruto talked tough to French President Emmanuel Macron while making a case for Africa.

“Africa has greater renewable energy from wind, water, and geothermal, and Kenya is leading the way in green energy. At the Global Citizen Event, we call on the global financial system, one that does not pit the West against the East, North against the South, one that does not pit the emitters against the non-emitters and developing countries against the developed,” he said.

“We want a system that is fair, that is transparent, that is not too much to ask for.” That was Ruto’s five-minute speech that earned him a standing ovation.

Addressing Djibouti National Assembly recently, he said time has come for “us to implement the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System” to facilitate instant payment under a simplified framework throughout the continent, and as a precursor to a Pan-African currency.

“We have to be ready to embrace change on that level if we are going to install financial and economic shock absorbers to African growth, to protect it from over dependence on the US dollar,” he said.

However, National Assembly Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi said the President is an opportunist who has discovered that some leaders in the continent have fallen out with the West and therefore his tough talk was part of courting the US, and European countries.

Wandayi noted that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa have fallen out with the West and Ruto has seen an opportunity to be the ‘poster boy’ for Africa’s renaissance.

“Ruto is simply courting the West, he is an opportunist who knows that there is a vacuum of leadership in the continent and he is occupying that space by playing to the international gallery and this adds to the incoherence of his government on the foreign policy,” he said.

The Ugunja MP argues that he has not known Ruto to stand for Pan-Africanism before and he was just an actor in the political global arena.