The founder of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has recounted how he was denied entry into South Africa after discovering that his visa had expired a day before his trip.
Rabiu shared the experience while speaking at the Africa CEO Forum held in Kigali, where African leaders, business executives and policymakers gathered to discuss the continent’s economic growth and development.
The summit was attended by Bola Tinubu, who led Nigeria’s delegation to the event.
According to Rabiu, the incident occurred in February 2025 when he travelled from Lagos to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba conference.
He explained that immigration officials discovered upon arrival that his South African visa had expired the previous day, leading to hours of delay and eventual deportation back to Nigeria.
“I had a personal experience. Last year, in 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,” Rabiu 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.”
The billionaire businessman admitted that his team failed to verify the validity of the visa before the trip, adding that he accepted responsibility for the oversight.
“Unfortunately, our crew did not check the visa to ensure the visas 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,” he stated.
Rabiu, however, said what troubled him most was observing that passengers arriving from Europe were allowed into South Africa without visas while Africans still faced strict entry requirements within the continent.
“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,” he said.
“I was standing there by the immigration desk, and every passenger on those three flights went into Cape Town without any visa.”
He stressed that although he had no objection to being denied entry due to an expired visa, the broader issue of travel restrictions faced by Africans within Africa needed urgent attention.
“I do not have a problem with the fact that I was there without a visa and I was returned. I took full responsibility of that,” Rabiu added.
“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.”
