BUA Group founder and Nigerian billionaire Abdul Samad Rabiu speaking at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday 14 May 2026. Photo credit: Supplied
Nigerian billionaire and BUA Group founder Abdul Samad Rabiu used the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali to recount a 2025 incident in which he was denied entry into South Africa after his visa expired by a single day while European travellers were waved through without any visas. South Africans have a different perspective and they are not keeping quiet about it.
Nigerian billionaire and BUA Group founder Abdul Samad Rabiu used the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday to recount a 2025 incident in which he was denied entry into South Africa after his visa expired by a single day while European travellers on three separate flights were waved through without any visas at all. The story has gone viral across Africa. South Africans, however, have a different perspective on the matter.
What Happened
In February 2025, Rabiu flew overnight from Lagos to Cape Town for the Mining Indaba conference. On arrival at Cape Town International Airport, immigration officials checked his travel documents and discovered that his visa had expired the previous day. Rabiu and his team were held for approximately four hours before he was returned to Lagos.
While he waited, Rabiu observed that passengers arriving on three separate international flights from Europe were cleared through immigration without producing any visas at all. He raised the experience at the Africa CEO Forum as an example of the broader failure of African continental integration under the AfCFTA framework.
Rabiu was careful to take personal responsibility for the oversight. “I take full responsibility because my visa had expired and my crew failed to notice it before the trip,” he said. “I did not have a problem with being returned because I had no valid visa. My issue was being an African in Africa and being denied entry while foreigners from other continents were allowed in freely without visas. This must change.”
South Africans Respond: Context Matters
Rabiu’s account has drawn significant sympathy across much of Africa and from Nigerian politicians including former senator Shehu Sani, who described South Africa’s treatment of Rabiu as an affront to Nigeria and accused South Africa of escalating xenophobia from the streets to the level of governance.
South Africans online have responded with a notably different perspective, one that is less about the specific incident and more about the broader context in which it occurred.
The first point South Africans have raised is straightforward. His visa had expired. The law is the law. South Africa did not invent the requirement for Nigerian nationals to hold valid visas. Visa requirements are a function of bilateral agreements between governments and South Africa enforces them. The fact that a billionaire’s travel crew failed to check his documents before an international flight is not South Africa’s administrative failure.
The second point South Africans have raised goes to the heart of why Nigerian nationals face visa requirements in South Africa at all. Commentary across social media reflects the view that Nigeria’s own citizens have contributed significantly to the tightening of South Africa’s immigration requirements through a well-documented pattern of visa and immigration abuse. Nigerian nationals have repeatedly featured prominently in South African court cases involving fraud, drug trafficking, human trafficking and immigration violations. The tightening of South Africa’s visa regime for Nigerian nationals did not happen in a vacuum, it happened in response to documented patterns of abuse that South African authorities were forced to address.
The third point South Africans have raised is directed at the European comparison. Rabiu’s observation that European nationals were walking through Cape Town International without visas is accurate but incomplete. Several European countries have visa-free or visa-on-arrival agreements with South Africa that are the result of formal bilateral negotiations. Those agreements exist because the governments of those countries negotiated them, ensured their citizens complied with South African immigration law, and built the kind of institutional trust that results in relaxed travel arrangements. The suggestion that South Africa is being anti-African by enforcing its visa requirements against Nigerian nationals while honouring its treaty obligations to European nations conflates two entirely different legal arrangements.
The fourth and perhaps most pointed response from South Africans concerns Rabiu’s wealth and profile. Commentary online reflects the view that Rabiu, Africa’s second richest man appeared to expect that his status would smooth over what was a straightforward administrative failure on the part of his own travel team. South Africans have noted that this is precisely the kind of expectation that has caused significant resentment in the past. The sentiment expressed widely is that money does not buy entry into South Africa, that the law applies equally regardless of net worth, and that an expectation of special treatment based on wealth is not something South Africa’s immigration officers are obligated to accommodate regardless of how that expectation may be handled in other jurisdictions.
The Broader Context South Africans Are Pointing To
This conversation is happening against the backdrop of some of the most intense national debate about immigration that South Africa has experienced in years. Anti-illegal immigration protests have taken place in Pretoria and Johannesburg in recent weeks. The kidnapping of spaza shop owner Mazwi Kubheka allegedly by a group that included Ethiopian nationals, captured national attention for 30 days. The MK Party has tabled a bill in Parliament seeking to reserve spaza shop ownership for South African citizens. South Africa’s unemployment rate has risen to 32.7 percent.
In this context, a Nigerian billionaire using an international business forum to criticise South Africa’s immigration enforcement over an expired visa that his own team failed to notice, has not landed well with South Africans who feel their government has if anything been too lax rather than too strict about immigration enforcement.
A Smear Campaign South Africans Say They Saw Coming
South Africans online have also raised a separate but related concern, that the narrative around Rabiu’s story is part of a broader pattern of misrepresentation that they have experienced repeatedly in recent weeks. Commentary across social media reflects the view that false and exaggerated reporting about the recent anti-illegal immigration protests in Pretoria and Johannesburg portrayed what were largely peaceful demonstrations as xenophobic attacks. Reports circulating internationally claimed multiple people had been killed during the protests when the verified figure was one fatality. South Africans say they noticed the pattern immediately.
The sentiment expressed widely online is that a coordinated effort exists to frame South Africa’s enforcement of its own immigration laws as xenophobia and that this effort is funded and amplified by Western and international interests that have their own reasons for wanting South Africa to maintain open borders regardless of the consequences for South African workers and communities. South Africans say they are not naive about this dynamic and that they are prepared for it.
Whether Rabiu’s comments at the Africa CEO Forum are part of any coordinated effort is not something Mzansi Today Live can establish. What is clear is that South Africans are watching the international framing of their immigration debate very carefully and they are not prepared to be silenced by labels or misrepresentation.
What Rabiu’s Broader Point Gets Right
It would be unfair to dismiss Rabiu’s broader argument entirely. His point about AfCFTA implementation is valid and widely shared by African economists and business leaders. The reality that Africans face greater barriers to movement within Africa than nationals of wealthier non-African countries is a genuine continental policy failure that deserves serious attention. The fact that only 28 percent of intra-African routes are visa-free while Western passport holders enjoy significantly easier access to African countries is a legitimate inequality worth addressing.
But that conversation, valid as it is, is separate from the question of whether South Africa was wrong to enforce its own immigration laws against a traveller whose visa had expired. South Africans are making a clear distinction between those two things and are not prepared to accept that the one justifies grievance about the other.
Editors Note The views expressed by South Africans referenced in this article are those of members of the public expressed online and on the ground and do not represent the editorial position of Mzansi Today Live. All information is based on publicly available statements from the Africa CEO Forum and social media commentary as at 15 May 2026.