The founder and Chief Executive Officer of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has recounted how he was denied entry into South Africa after his visa expired just a day before his arrival, while European travellers were reportedly allowed into the country without visas.
Rabiu shared the experience on Thursday during his presentation titled ‘Africa at scale: Capital, policy, and the architecture of growth’ at the ongoing Africa CEO Forum held in Kigali, Rwanda.
The businessman narrated that the incident occurred in February 2025 when he travelled from Lagos to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba, only to be turned back at immigration after officials discovered his visa had expired.
According to him, the oversight left him stranded for hours at the airport before he was eventually returned to Lagos.
He alleged that while he and his team were delayed over visa issues, passengers arriving on several flights from Europe were cleared into South Africa without visas.
“I had a personal experience. Last year February, I was travelling to Cape Town for the mining Indaba. And as we landed. I left at night from Lagos to Cape Town. We arrived at 6 in the morning,” he said.
“As we arrived, we went to the immigration. I tendered my passport, and the immigration officer looked at it and was like, where is your visa, and I said, “My visa is there”. Unknown to me, my visa had expired the day before.
“Unfortunately, our crew did not check the visa to ensure the visa were valid. We were there for four hours, but at the end of the day, I had to turn back. I was turned back to Lagos.
“But the issue is, while we were waiting to see whether we would be able to get access to the countries without the visas, there were like three international flights from Europe. All three flights were mostly Europeans.
“I was standing there by the immigration desk, and every passenger on those three flights went into Cape Town without any visa.”
The BUA boss stressed that although he accepted responsibility for the expired visa, the experience reflected broader challenges facing Africans within Africa, saying, “I do not have a problem with the fact that I was there without the visa and I was returned. I took full responsibility of that.
“I had an issue with being an African in Africa, being turned away because I do not have a visa and foreigners from other continents were coming in and were allowed to enter without a visa. This must change.”
