The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after being denied entry to Angola on Thursday.
Sifuna said he had arrived in Addis on Thursday night after being kicked out of Angola.
“Safely back in Addis after being kicked out of Angola. I thank the Kenyan Mission in Luanda led by Amb. Joyce Mmaitsi. You guys are great. However over 20 leaders from various countries are still detained. 9 Tanzanians, 5 from Botswana 3 from Lesotho, 2 Malawians, 1 from eSwatini, 1 German, 2 from the UK and 2 South Africans.”
“The Angolan authorities must immediately let them out . Such a shame that visitors can be treated like this in an African country when Angola chairs the African Union,” he said in a post on X.
Sifuna was among a host of African leaders of opposition parties who were on Thursday denied entry into Angola.
They had been invited to the Central African nation by Adalberto Costa, the President of opposition party the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), for a two-day event.
The Nairobi Senator and other leaders, who included Tanzania’s opposition politician Tundu Lissu, were however denied entry into the country by the ruling government, hence were left stranded at the Luanda Airport.
Other prominent African leaders in the delegation included Zanzibar’s First Vice President Othman Masoud, and former Mozambican presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane.
The leaders took to their social media platforms to express their frustrations over the treatment.
“UNITA President Adalberto Costa invited us to Angola. The Government has denied us entry!” said Sifuna.
Lissu, on his part, said: “This shabby treatment of the nationals of brotherly African nations by the Angolan immigration authorities is totally unacceptable and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
The group includes a sitting First Vice President from Tanzania; a former President of Botswana; a former Prime Minister of Lesotho and a host of senior political leaders and delegates from Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, South Africa, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Germany, USA, Uganda, DRC and Mozambique, Lissu said.
“Angolans and Tanzanians are a brotherly people. Tanzania hosted Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto and his MPLA fighters in the early years of their independence struggle. We supported Angola through thick and thin during the apartheid South African regime’s occupation of Southern Angola in the ’70s and ’80s.”
The ACT-Wazalendo party, whose members include the chairman and Zanzibar’s first vice president, Othman, who were among those in Angola, has strongly condemned what they term as degrading treatment against Tanzanian leaders and other participants detained at Luanda Airport in Angola.
The party is demanding immediate clarification from the Angolan authorities regarding the reasons behind the detainment and confiscation of the passports belonging to the leaders.
It however still remains unclear why the leaders were denied entry into the country.
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