Huddah: Kenyan passport is ‘useless’
Kenyan socialite Huddah Monroe never shies from speaking her mind or making her desires known.
On Monday, Huddah who is currently based in Dubai termed the Kenyan passport as “useless.”
Via Instagram, the socialite claimed the Kenyan travel document, which was recently ranked by Henley Passport Index as the 8th most powerful in Africa and 72nd globally, lacks power outside East Africa.
“Kenya should negotiate with other countries to allow her citizens to travel visa-free or get visas on arrival. This is the most useless passport ever, I need a visa to go to hell, surely. It doesn’t even make sense at all, if I died and came back, I would never come back as a Kenyan,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my country but I believe they can negotiate with other countries so that people go [travel to various countries] for free and so that people get visas on arrival. Why do you treat other people special and they don’t treat you the same way?”
She described the passport’s interior as nice “but it doesn’t do sh*t for you.”
She was, however, quick to point out that most African passports “are a joke apart from South Africa and a few others.”
“[It is] High time African countries leaders start negotiating with other countries for their able citizens, not going there to beg, to be given the freedom to roam. Exposure is better than a PhD!”
Huddah continued: “Reasons why so many Africans are in the dark on what’s really happening in the world, stuck in 1950 even the fake woke ones is lack of exposure. Let the able ones go explore and expose the rest to what’s real! But it will never happen.”
The Passport Index report 2021 indicated that Kenya emerged 72 in the global ranking, behind Seychelles, South Africa, Mauritius, Botswana, Namibia, Tunisia, and Swaziland among other African states.
A Kenyan can visit 29 countries without a visa and can obtain an entry pass on arrival in 30 countries.
Some of the countries that Kenyans can access without a visa or get one on arrival include Singapore, Hong Kong, Jamaica, and Fiji.
In East African Community, Kenya defeated all its peers with both Tanzania and Uganda trailing at positions 73 and 77 globally.
Kenya rolled out new chip-embedded passports for its citizens in a move that targets rampant forgery and impersonation of holders.
The new features are meant to make it impossible for anyone to forge or duplicate a Kenyan passport.
Roll-out of the e-passports with a 10-year validity period marked the beginning of the end of the ‘analogue’ passports that have been in use since Independence and has seen join 60 other countries that use e-passports.