Abdul Samad Rabiu, the founder of BUA Group, has revealed that South Africa once denied him entry because his visa expired a day before he arrived, but Europeans were allowed to enter without it.
Rabiu shared the experience during his presentation on ‘Africa at scale: Capital, policy, and the architecture of growth’ on Thursday at the Africa CEO Forum, held in Kigali, Rwanda.
The Nigerian billionaire said the encounter, which happened in 2025, highlights the challenges experienced by Africans in Africa.
“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 businessman said he understood why he was turned back, but allowing foreigners from other continents to enter South Africa without visas while preventing Africans from entering does not sit well with him.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
According to Rabiu, the lack of cooperation among African countries does not affect the movement of Africans alone; it also frustrates business expansion from one country to another on the continent.
“At BUA Group, as we expanded our regional investment, we actively sought to supply several African markets under the AfCFTA framework,” the businessman said.
“While some countries embraced the spirit of agreement, others were less supportive in practice, with administrative barriers, legacy import structures limiting our ability to participate fully in regional trade.
“So really, AfCFTA is not working as it should. Because I had a personal experience in one of the countries that we tried to penetrate, we were actually frustrated.”
Rabiu said the challenges faced highlight the central reality that while the African continental free trade area (AfCFTA) framework exists for the integration of African markets, implementation remains uneven.
According to the investor, integration is what turns potential into scale, and at the centre of it is the AfCFTA, a market of over 1.4 billion people across 55 countries.
He described the AfCFTA as one of the most ambitious integration efforts in the world, adding that “its promise is clear: intra-Africa trade, regional value chains, and industrial scale that no single economy can achieve alone. Its potential does not deliver outcome, execution does”.
‘AFRICA’S NEXT PHASE HINGES ON CAPITAL, POLICY’
Rabiu said Africa’s next phase of transformation hinges on five transformations, comprising capital, policy, infrastructure, value addition and integration.
“Capital to finance ambition, policy to enable execution, infrastructure, the foundation of growth, value-addition to unlock the full value of our resources, and integration to unlock scale,” he said.
“Let me start with capital, across the continent, institutional capital is expanding pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and increasingly sophisticated private investment vehicles, yet, infrastructure financing remains far below potential.
“The reality is clear: Africa is not short of capital, it is short of coordinated mobile capital deployed at scale. We must unlock cross-border capital flows, harmonise investment frameworks, strengthen project preparation, and expand the risk-sharing mechanisms that both domestic and international investments.
“Deepening capital market is equally critical, cross-border listings interoperable, settlement system and expanded local currency trade are not merely technical reforms; they are strategic infrastructure.”
The cement mogul said financial independence begins with financial integration, but added that capital alone does not build economies, as policy determines whether capital truly becomes productive.
“Across many regions, segmented legal frameworks, overlapping approvals and inconsistent enforcement continue to raise the cost of investment in Africa. These are structural constraints on growth,” Rabiu said.
“What is required is clear and transparent rules, predictable enforcement and coordinated industrial strategies across borders. Alignment does not compromise independence; rather, it strengthens economic performance.
“The 21st century will not reward detached brilliance, but coordinated execution.”
Speaking further, the billionaire said infrastructure is important to the growth of Africa because no economy can industrialise without the systems that power growth, reliable energy, efficient ports, modern rail networks, quality roads, and digital connectivity.
Rabiu added that the systems are critical to reducing costs, improving productivity and connecting African markets.
