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Neighbouring countries, Malawi and Zambia, are being implored by citizens to consider lifting passport requirements on their boarders amid reports that Botswana and Namibia have become the first neighbours to emancipate their citizens from the colonial imposed boundaries.
Comments monitored on social media reports indicate that people from Malawi and Zambia are not only neighbours but brothers and sisters who share common belief, culture and traditions.
Recently, the Chewa people from the two countries were captured celebrating a cultural norm dubbed 'Kulamba' in Zambia in honour of their paramount king, Kalonga.
"Its painful to be pinned by a policeman you share a surname with. Tonse achina Banda kumafunsana passport? This is rubbish. We're one. This passport thing is very colonial," remarked a Mr Banda in commenting on the Botswana-Namibia development.
Without passport, it is a gamble for people from the two neighbouring countries to visit each other. Citizens from the two suffer harrassment in boarders, according to media reports.
Namibia and Botswana are announcing that they are lifting passport requirements on their borders, a move that is expected to spur development between the two countries.
Namibian president Hage Geingob, speaking in the Botswana capital Gaborone on Friday, said nationals of the two countries would only need to produce IDs to move between the two countries.
“Our two countries not only share a common border, but also a common people and heritage. A symbiotic and inter-dependent relationship exists along our common borders,” Geingob said, speaking during the inaugural Botswana-Namibia bi-national commission.
“Therefore, I call on our senior officials to fast-track the implementation of the usage of Identity Documents (IDs) as travel documents between the two countries, without delay.”
Countries in the SADC bloc lifted visa requirements, but the Botswana-Namibia deal to allow nationals of the two countries to move freely across borders is without precedent.
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