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Africa's richest person, Aliko Dangote, has vented his frustrations over the obstacles he confronts as an investor, revealing that he needs 35 different visas on his Nigerian passport to travel within the continent.
Ironically, the 67-year-old business mogul said his French counterparts don't face the same challenge on the continent, as their passport allows them to move more freely.
He made this known while speaking at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.
The billionaire stressed that moving around Africa has become a big challenge because he needs to shuffle his passport over different embassies to get visas.
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“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,” he said.
Dangote says French investors move across Africa freely
Citing the French passport as an example, Dangote noted that the Chairman of Total Energies Patrick Pouyanne needs not the same number of visas on his passport to gain access to African countries.
“You don’t need 35 visas on your French passport. This means you have a freer movement than myself in Africa,” the billionaire said.
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Giving his take on businesses within 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, both the development of Africa, it’s not going to happen,” he said.
“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.”