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By Mideno Bayagbon
(08055069059 Whatsapp)
Perhaps not many people noticed the huge insults the United Arab Emirates, UAE, recently heaped on Nigeria. It, on Monday, completely banned all categories of Nigerians from entering the United Arab Emirates, home to rich Nigerians favourite holiday destination, Dubai. It came in the form of an order which banned all airlines from airlifting anyone with a Nigerian passport into Dubai or any part thereof.
The first signal of this is when an Ethiopian Airline flight offloaded all Nigerians who had bought tickets to Dubai from their flight. Their explanation was that the Middle Eastern country sent signals to all airlines not to board any Nigerian passengers headed for Dubai as they will not be allowed entry; and any defiant airline faces huge fine.
This surprising total ban, came in the wake of the ongoing spat between the country and Nigeria over Covid-19 testing protocols which targeted Nigerians; and the number of slots Air Peace was allocated in Dubai. While Nigeria has 21 slots allocated to Emirates Airlines, only one slot was given to Air Peace in total disregard of bilateral agreements between the two countries; and against the known standard in the aviation industry.
The seeming trigger of the current insult is when early this week, the authorities in Nigeria reduced Emirates flights into Nigeria to once weekly, instead of the 21 slots they were enjoying into Abuja and Lagos airports. While there was no any official communication from the government in UAE to the Nigerian authorities on this, the order to the airlines came just hours after Nigeria announced the reduction of the flight slots to once weekly, for Emirates Airlines.
As industry watchers have noticed for sometime now, there have been a back and forth between the authorities in Abu Dhabi and Abuja. There have been a series of banning and unbanning of flights by both countries over what was first thought was the Covid-19 testing protocols which erupted in February. The UAE government had arbitrarily put in place humiliating Covid-19 testing protocols which mainly targeted Nigerians. When protests from the authorities in Nigeria fell on deaf ears, it was forced to take drastic action against Emirates Airline, to whom the Nigerian market is a very strategic one. The UAE then decided to punish Nigerians more by upping the ante, placing them on the red list of travellers. This required them to quarantine in hotels at huge costs and face punishing testing protocols. The to and fro between both countries eventually led to UAE seemingly relaxing the red listing, but the testing protocols which seemingly targeted Nigerians were still left intact until Nigeria again complained and it was relaxed.
Nigerians, who daily flock into Dubai have had to use other airlines in the past few months while both countries try to reach an agreement on the contentious issues. Major beneficiaries of this have been Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airline and so on. With the decision to totally ban all Nigerians from entering the UAE, even these airlines have fallen victim of the imbroglio.
There was, what eventually turned out a temporary sigh of relief, early in the month. However, it it was not until December 5th, after what seemed like a workable agreement was reached, that Emirates Airline was able to resume its flight operations into Abuja and Lagos. But the contentious issue of slots for Air Peace reared its head again as Sharjah, the airport through which the airline had three weekly slots, previously, to fly the Dubai route, could only allocate it a one slot weekly. Nigeria, angered by this new belligerence, retaliated and reduced flight from Emirates Airlines to once weekly and the airline was again forced to suspended its flight operations into Nigeria.
Not surprisingly, the UAE government immediately sprung to action with a total ban of all Nigerians from entering the country. No airline was permitted to bring in anyone with a Nigerian passport. Or so it seemed. It was a full slap on the face of Nigeria and relations between the two countries nose dived to their lowest ebb.
The Nigerian authorities have surprisingly been very assertive in reacting to the shabby treatment the Dubai authorities have decidedly meted on her over time; first by its targeted Covid-19 testing protocols and also by its refusal to reciprocate the aviation bilateral agreements between both countries. UAE by its new affluence, and the misbehaviour of a few Nigerians, has tended to treat Nigerians with so much disdain even though a third of its current affluence can be attributed to funds, stolen or not, which Nigerias have flooded it with.
Nevertheless, just as the article was about to be published, fresh information emerged that the authorities in Abu Dhabi have buckled: the flight slots for Air Peace have been increased significantly to seven, weekly. Fresh negotiations, one assumes, will now follow.
For the second time in as many weeks, one is proud to call himself a Nigerian. First, it was WIZKID who shut the 02 Arena in London for three days, chalking up 60,000 fan base in the widely acclaimed musical concert: Made In Lagos. It is estimated that the music concert made more than £30 million for the British economy. Now, this spat with the tiny nation of UAE. We stood our grounds, showed ourselves the respect due us and did not allow a country with a population size of Kaduna or so, to humiliate and bully us. Hadi Sirika, the Aviation Minister, deserves our congratulations.
FINAL LINE: Nigeria and the ten other African countries, the United Kingdom placed on its red list were hurriedly removed yesterday. Though the British would not admit it, but it helped that Nigeria also banned all flights from all the countries which placed it on their Red list. Again, the Aviation Minister stands tall.