Senator Adesoji Akanbi has commended the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, for the role played in the diplomatic face off between the West and Nigeria in the wake of the discovery of Covid-Omicron.
FreshPage recalls that United Kingdom along with Canada, and some other countries had placed a blanket travel ban on Nigeria, conspicuously putting Nigeria on a red list of countries not expected on their shores. An action which Nigeria protested strongly against and even threatened to also banned same foreign countries from travelling to Nigeria.
Of course, the threat was not taken lightly by Great Britain which made a statement that it will not go back on the ban!
But the Nigerian government maintained its stand and on the case of the United Arab Emirates that short-changed Nigerian airline Air Peace, the Federal government also retaliated by reducing the frequencies of Emirates Airlines, which led to Emirates Airlines closing office.
At present, the move of the Nigerian government has caused the affected countries to honour and respect their relationship with Nigeria. While the UK has removed Nigeria from the red list, UAE has changed its position and granted Air Peace seven slots.
Senator Adesoji Akanbi who is the Chairman of Dynasty Airline management (chartered flights operator) noted that the aviation minister should be commended for his courage, noting that, as a people, we should always turn our weakness to strength.
That in this particular diplomatic row, Nigeria turned her weakness to strength.
“We have the population and we have the market. These are our strength and we have used it very well,” he added.
