In Decisive Action To Protect Nigeria’s Sovereignty, FG Set To Place UK, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Argentina On Red List

…British Airways, Others To Face Ban

The Federal Government is set to take decisive actions to protect Nigeria’s Sovereignty by reciprocating the travel ban placed on the country by the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Argentina, THE WHISTLER can authoritatively report

Top government sources confided in this Website that the decision to place a travel ban on these four countries will be announced on Monday by the Federal Government.

Last Saturday the British High Commission, Abuja issued a statement where it confirmed that it had put Nigeria on red list due to Omicron variant of COVID-19, as some Nigerians who returned to the UK were identified to have the variant after undergoing tests.

The implication of being on a red list is that only UK and Irish citizens and residents would be allowed to enter the UK, while others travelling from Nigeria would not be allowed, except on transit at the airside of the airport

Nigeria became the 11th country to go on the UK’s red list for international travel on Monday. All nations currently on that list are African.

Also, on December 9, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia suspended all flights from Nigeria due to the the new Coronavirus variant, Omicron.

This is even as the Canadian government said on December 6 that it would no longer accept result of COVID test from Nigeria, Egypt, South and seven other countries on the continent

In bid to check the trend, it was gathered that a meeting was held by the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19 on Saturday to discuss the issue.

The committee is Chaired by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha.

A top government source confided in this Website that a recommendation was made by the Ministry of Aviation to the Presidential Committee that the government should put these four countries on red list.

This means that the government will also place a ban on flights coming into Nigeria from these countries from next week.

The implication of this is that airlines coming from these countries into Nigeria such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates Airline, Lufthansa, and KLM among others will not enter Nigeria’s airspace.

The source said, “There is the case of Saudi Arabia who put Nigeria on the ban list, no visa and no travel and also Canada. So, today there was a zoom meeting by the COVID-19 Task Force which the Aviation Ministry participated and it gave its input that this is not acceptable to Nigeria.

“The Ministry recommended that canada, UK, Saudi Arabia and Argentina be also put red list as they did to us and if they don’t allow us to go into their country so who are they coming as airline to pick out of the country.

“So I’m very sure that in the next three days between now and Monday or perhaps Tuesday, all those countries will be put on red list from the PAC Task force on covid 19 and once they put them on red list, it means they are banned and airlines will also be banned. We are going through difficult moments but we have to do it in the interest of our country.”