KIGALI — Highlighting the severe structural bottlenecks impeding the free movement of citizens and capital across the continent, the founder and Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has opened up about a personal airport humiliation. The Nigerian billionaire and business mogul revealed that South African immigration authorities denied him entry into Cape Town because his visa had expired just 24 hours prior, while hundreds of European passengers from parallel international flights were granted entry without any visa requirements.

The industrialist shared this unsettling travel experience while speaking as a premium panelist at the prestigious Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. Speaking on the high-level plenary titled “Africa at Scale: Capital, Policy, and the Architecture of Growth,” Rabiu used his personal border encounter to illustrate the deep-seated institutional contradictions hindering true pan-African development.

The Cape Town Incident: Four Hours on the Immigration Tarmac

Recounting the logistics of the trip, the BUA Group chairman stated that the incident occurred in February 2025, when he traveled via a private flight from Lagos to Cape Town to attend the historic African Mining Indaba the continent’s largest energy and mining investment congress.

"I had a personal experience," Rabiu told the gathering of continental policymakers, heads of state, and corporate executives. "I left at night from Lagos to Cape Town and we arrived at 6:00 in the morning. As we landed, we went directly to the immigration desk. I tendered my passport, and the immigration officer looked at it and asked, ‘Where is your visa?’ I replied that my visa was right there in the booklet. Unknown to me, my visa had expired the exact day before our arrival. Unfortunately, our flight crew did not cross-check the validity documents before departure."

The billionaire took full responsibility for the administrative oversight but noted that the subsequent treatment he witnessed while stranded at the immigration desk highlighted a deeper systemic issue regarding how Africans are perceived within Africa.

"We were held there for four hours, and at the end of the day, I was officially turned back and forced to fly back to Lagos," Rabiu explained. "But the real issue is that while we were waiting at the desk to see whether we could secure a temporary waiver or an entry visa, three large international commercial flights from Europe landed. All three flights were filled mostly with European nationals. I watched every single passenger on those three flights pass through the immigration desk and enter Cape Town without needing any visa at all. I do not have a problem with being turned back for an expired visa—I take full responsibility for that. But I have a massive problem with being an African in Africa, turned away over a visa, while foreigners from other continents walk in effortlessly without one. This dynamic must change."

The AfCFTA Paradox: Administrative Barriers and Vested Protectionism

Transitioning from travel restrictions to broader corporate expansion, Rabiu lamented that a severe lack of state-level cooperation and deep-seated protectionism continue to fracture cross-border business. He revealed that BUA Group’s recent attempts to scale up regional investments and export essential commodities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) framework were met with deliberate, frustrating administrative barriers.

The industrialist noted that while a few progressive nations fully embraced the spirit of the free trade pact, several others deployed legacy import barriers, complex overlapping approvals, and bureaucratic red tape to actively block Nigerian products from penetrating their domestic markets.

"So really, AfCFTA is not working as smoothly as it should," the billionaire declared candidly. "Its promise is incredibly clear on paper: intra-Africa trade, regional value chains, and industrial scale that no single economy can achieve alone. It targets a massive unified market of more than 1.4 billion people across 55 countries. But potential does not deliver tangible outcomes; execution does. We were practically frustrated in one of the countries we tried to penetrate."

The Five Pillars for Africa’s Economic Transformation

To salvage the continent's integration efforts and drive sustainable industrial scale, the BUA boss outlined five critical pillars that African nations must prioritize: capital, policy, infrastructure, value addition, and integration.

Addressing the issue of finance, Rabiu dispelled the narrative that the continent lacks liquidity, arguing instead that the real challenge lies in the fragmentation of existing resources.

"The reality is clear: Africa is not short of capital; it is short of coordinated, mobile capital deployed at scale," he asserted. "Across the continent, institutional capital is expanding via pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and sophisticated private investment vehicles, yet cross-border infrastructure financing remains far below potential. We must harmonize investment frameworks, strengthen project preparation, and expand risk-sharing mechanisms."

He further charged African leaders to deepen local capital markets through cross-border stock exchange listings, interoperable financial settlement systems, and expanded local currency trade, describing these steps as strategic infrastructure rather than mere technical reforms. He concluded by warning that segmented legal frameworks and inconsistent regulatory enforcement across borders remain structural constraints on growth, calling for transparent rules to lower the high cost of investment across West, East, and Southern Africa.