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Kenya will abolish visa restrictions for all African nationals on December 12, President William Ruto announced Saturday as he continued his push for a visa-free continent.

Ruto stated in his address at the Youth Connekt Africa 2023 Summit in Nairobi that he has long held ambitions to abolish visa barriers among Africans, whom he views as ‘one people’.

Those ambitions will be realised on Jamhuri Day when Kenya commemorates its independence from British rule.

It would make Kenya only the fourth African country to implement visa-free entry policy after Seychelles, Gambia and Benin. Seychelles, one of the world’s major tourist destinations, was the first to do so in 2016.

“We are going to declare that no African will be required to have a visa to come to Kenya. It is because we are one people and this continent needs to write its own narrative”, Ruto said.

“For a long time, we have allowed others to write a narrative about us and that is why for a while Africa has been profiled as a continent of conflict, disease and poverty. But Africa is much more,” Ruto noted.

Kenya has already waived visas for several countries including South Africa, Djibouti, Comoros and the Republic of Congo.