Founder and Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has criticised visa and immigration practices within Africa after recounting how he was denied entry into South Africa despite travelling on business, while some European travellers were reportedly allowed into the country without visas.
Rabiu shared the experience on Thursday during a session titled “Africa at Scale: Capital, Policy and the Architecture of Growth” at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.
He said the incident occurred in February 2025 when he travelled from Lagos to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba conference, but was stopped by immigration officials upon arrival after it was discovered that his visa had expired a day earlier.
According to him, he and his team spent about four hours at the airport before he was eventually sent back to Lagos.
“I take full responsibility because my visa had expired and my crew failed to notice it before the trip,” he said.
However, Rabiu said what struck him most was the treatment of other passengers arriving around the same time, particularly travellers from Europe who were reportedly granted entry without visas.
“While we were waiting at the immigration desk, there were about three international flights from Europe. Most of the passengers were Europeans, and they all entered Cape Town without visas,” he said.
He described the experience as a reflection of wider challenges affecting intra-African mobility and integration, despite ongoing efforts to promote continental economic cooperation.
Rabiu stressed that his concern was not about being returned due to an expired visa, but what he described as unequal treatment of Africans compared to non-Africans within the continent.
He called for urgent reforms in visa regimes across African countries, arguing that true economic integration under frameworks like the African Continental Free Trade Area cannot succeed while movement within Africa remains restrictive for Africans themselves.
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