On Monday, a video posted by Larry Madowo, CNN’s worldwide correspondent based mostly in Nairobi, sparked a debate about Nigeria’s visa coverage after he was charged $80 for a single-entry visa at Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed Worldwide Airport. Within the viral clip, shared on X, Madowo questioned why Nigeria expenses guests charges that lots of its African neighbours don’t.
The timing was pointed. Hours later, Nigerian officers signed a proper settlement to host the Intra-African Commerce Truthful 2027 in Lagos, a continental commerce occasion designed to spice up commerce throughout Africa.
The signing ceremony was led by Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s Minister of Trade, Commerce, and Funding, and attended by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who chairs the honest’s advisory council, alongside George Elombi and Francisca Tatchouop Belobe of the African Export-Import Financial institution, which organises the occasion.
Nigeria expects the occasion to draw greater than 100,000 guests from throughout Africa, together with delegates from Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, Gabon, and Algeria. But guests from a number of of these nations pays entry charges earlier than they arrive.
Beneath Nigeria’s Reciprocal Visa Payment Coverage, the nation expenses overseas nationals based mostly on no matter their residence governments cost Nigerian travellers—that means the price of attending varies relying on the place you maintain a passport.
Opening up visa entry is more and more vital as Nigeria prepares to host such a big inflow of holiday makers. Whereas reciprocal visa charges are supposed to advertise equity, strict entry necessities may discourage participation from key African nations and restrict the occasion’s impression.
Simpler entry guidelines may increase attendance, enhance financial good points, and sign Nigeria’s dedication to free motion below the African Continental Free Commerce Space, reinforcing its place as a key hub for continental commerce and integration.
The commerce honest itself is anticipated to focus closely on how technological innovation and digitalisation can speed up the simplification of funding, import, and export procedures throughout African economies.
Contributors can even look at how nations can higher align home laws with continental insurance policies and laws. The objective is to harmonise requirements, simplify visa regimes for enterprise travellers, and broaden the usage of the Pan-African Fee and Settlement System because the default platform for cross-border commerce transactions.
“Nigeria is actually proud to host the Intra-African Commerce Truthful 2027 in Lagos, the birthplace and launchpad of African financial integration,” Oduwole mentioned on the signing ceremony.
She pointed to Lagos’ historic function in regional cooperation. The Financial Group of West African States, the continent’s first regional financial bloc and a mannequin for later initiatives, together with the AfCFTA, was based in 1975 by the Treaty of Lagos.
Nigeria strengthened ECOWAS’ free-movement framework within the early Nineteen Eighties by implementing visa-free entry of as much as 90 days for ECOWAS nationals as a part of Section I of the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Motion of Individuals.
A long time later, in December 2019, Muhammadu Buhari introduced that Nigeria would prolong visas on arrival to all African passport holders from January 2020, signalling assist for larger continental mobility, though visa necessities weren’t totally eliminated.
Regardless of these efforts, Nigeria’s place on the Africa Visa Openness Index 2025, revealed by the African Improvement Financial institution and the African Union, has slipped. The nation fell into the decrease half of the rankings, outdoors the highest 20 African nations for visa openness, after inserting sixth on the index in 2024.
A part of the decline adopted coverage adjustments in 2025, when Nigeria, together with Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Somalia, shifted from a broad visa-on-arrival coverage for African travellers to a system requiring visas earlier than departure. Though an e-Visa platform was launched to simplify purposes, the Africa Visa Openness Index nonetheless classifies e-Visas as visas obtained earlier than journey, contributing to Nigeria’s drop in rating.
Nigerian authorities say the coverage shift was pushed by safety and reciprocity considerations. Pre-travel e-Visa screening permits safety businesses to vet guests earlier than they arrive, whereas reciprocal guidelines be certain that nations that impose strict entry situations on Nigerians face comparable necessities.
Even so, Nigeria might argue that stricter visa insurance policies don’t essentially undermine the success of main continental occasions such because the Intra-African Commerce Truthful. In simply 4 editions, the honest has generated greater than $167 billion in commerce and funding offers throughout Africa, in line with Afreximbank.
Algeria, which hosted the 2025 version, recorded $48.3 billion in commerce and investments in the course of the occasion, regardless of its rating among the many 10 least visa-open nations on the continent. For greater than 90% of African nationals, travellers to Algeria should apply for a visa prematurely by an embassy or consulate earlier than coming into the nation.
Restrictive visa regimes have financial penalties. Belobe, Commissioner for Financial Improvement, Commerce, Tourism, Trade, and Minerals on the African Union Fee, warned that such insurance policies can hinder mobility and commerce inside Africa, significantly as Nigeria prepares to host continent-wide occasions.
As the house of Africa’s most profitable fintech unicorns, Nigeria’s major profit from an open visa coverage can be the restoration of investor confidence and the facilitation of regional growth.
“The primary path is with respect to non-tariff obstacles and safety considerations that proceed to hinder intra-African commerce,” Belobe mentioned in the course of the agreement-signing ceremony. “On the African Union, we’re very a lot conscious of those preoccupations and suggest that they need to be excessive on the agenda of the Commerce and Funding Discussion board throughout IATF 2027.”
Information from the African Export-Import Financial institution’s 2025 Intra-African Commerce Report exhibits that whereas intra-African commerce rose to $220.3 billion in 2024, its share of whole African commerce declined to 14.5% in 2024. The pattern means that obstacles similar to visa restrictions and different non-tariff obstacles proceed to restrict the total potential of the continent’s financial integration.
Based on Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, the weak efficiency of intra-African commerce displays the sluggish adoption of the core rules underpinning the African Continental Free Commerce Space.
“It exhibits that regardless of the signing of the AfCFTA by 54 AU member states and ratification by 50 of them, in addition to the adoption of a number of supporting protocols and regional commerce preparations, African nations are nonetheless sluggish in prioritising intra-African commerce and harnessing the alternatives created by the AfCFTA,” she mentioned.
Nonetheless, Oduwole famous that Nigeria has continued to evaluate its insurance policies to align with the AfCFTA for the reason that settlement was signed in 2021.
“Nigeria is proud to be the primary AfCFTA state social gathering to finish its five-year implementation evaluate in 2025, an obligation below the settlement, and we now have a complete understanding of the reforms, investments, and institutional practices required to completely realise the promise of the AfCFTA,” she mentioned.
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