The Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has called for reforms to ease movement across Africa after recounting how he was denied entry into South Africa earlier this year.
Rabiu spoke on Thursday at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, during a session themed “Africa at Scale: Capital, Policy and the Architecture of Growth.”
According to him, the incident occurred in February 2025 when he travelled to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba conference but was stopped by immigration officials after it was discovered that his visa had expired a day before his arrival.
Rabiu admitted responsibility for the oversight, noting that both he and his travel team failed to notice the expired visa before departure.
He said he spent several hours at the airport alongside members of his delegation before eventually being sent back to Lagos.
However, the businessman said the experience highlighted what he described as unequal travel policies within Africa.
According to him, while he was being denied entry, passengers arriving from Europe were allegedly allowed into South Africa without visas.
Although he acknowledged that his own case stemmed from a documentation issue, Rabiu said the situation raised broader questions about fairness and reciprocity in African immigration systems.
He argued that Africa’s efforts toward economic integration and stronger intra-African trade could be weakened if Africans continue to face tougher mobility restrictions within the continent than visitors from other regions.
Rabiu said the experience was not just about personal inconvenience but about the urgent need for African countries to rethink border and travel policies as regional cooperation becomes increasingly important for economic growth.
