Nigerian billionaire, Abdul Samad Rabiu has opened up on how he was denied entry into South Africa over an expired visa, while European travellers arriving on multiple international flights were allowed into the country without visas.
Rabiu shared the experience on Thursday while speaking at the Africa CEO Forum held in Kigali during a session titled, “Africa at scale: Capital, policy, and the architecture of growth.”
According to the founder of BUA Group, the incident happened in February 2025 when he travelled from Lagos to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba conference.
Recounting the experience, Rabiu said he arrived in Cape Town around 6:00 a.m. after an overnight flight from Lagos, only to discover at immigration that his visa had expired a day earlier without his knowledge.
“I had a personal experience. Last year February, I was travelling to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba,” he said.
“As we arrived, we went to immigration. I tendered my passport, and the immigration officer looked at it and asked, ‘Where is your visa?’ I said, ‘My visa is there.’ Unknown to me, my visa had expired the day before.”
The businessman blamed the oversight on his crew, saying they failed to confirm that the visa was still valid before the trip.
Rabiu said he spent four hours at the airport before eventually being sent back to Lagos.
However, what upset him most, he explained, was watching passengers from three European flights walk straight into South Africa without visas while he, an African, was denied entry in another African country.
“But the issue is, while we were waiting to see whether we would be able to get access to the country without the visa, there were like three international flights from Europe,” he said.
“I was standing there by the immigration desk, and every passenger on those three flights went into Cape Town without any visa.”
Rabiu said he accepted responsibility for travelling with an expired visa, but questioned why Africans still face tougher entry restrictions within the continent compared to foreigners from outside Africa.
“I had an issue with being an African in Africa, being turned away because I do not have a visa while foreigners from other continents were allowed to enter without one. This must change,” he added.
The billionaire used the incident to highlight what he described as the slow implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area framework across the continent.
According to him, many African businesses still struggle with administrative bottlenecks and restrictive trade structures despite promises of regional integration under AfCFTA.
Rabiu revealed that BUA Group also encountered frustrating barriers while trying to expand into some African markets under the agreement.
“At BUA Group, as we expanded our regional investment, we actively sought to supply several African markets under the AfCFTA framework,” he said.
“While some countries embraced the spirit of agreement, others were less supportive in practice, with administrative barriers and legacy import structures limiting our ability to participate fully in regional trade.”
He added that Africa’s future growth would depend heavily on stronger regional integration, coordinated economic policies, infrastructure development, and easier movement of capital and people across the continent.
Rabiu described AfCFTA as one of the world’s boldest integration projects, noting that its success would ultimately depend on practical implementation rather than promises alone.
