Following the protest by Nigeria and other nationals on placing the country on a red list by the United Kingdom Authorities (UK) over the Omicron variant, the UK authorities have rescinded their decision by removing Nigeria and 10 other countries from the list. The UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, made this known when he briefed the British Parliament today. Javid affirmed to the lawmakers that today by 04:00GMT all the 11 countries will be removed from the red list by England authorities. He explained to the parliament that the red list has been short-lived because it was found to have failed to checkmate the spread of the Omicron variant. The Health Secretary said, “So I can announce today that whilst we’ll maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4 am tomorrow.” Accordingly, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are the Africa countries that made the red list.
Contrary to the UK expectation, the said red list has failed to checkmate the spread of the omicron in their country.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, also took to his Twitter handle to announce that lifting of the ban will take effect on Wednesday, 15th Dec,
The message said, “From 4 am on Weds 15 Dec, ALL 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel red. All current TESTING measures remain in place & will be reviewed in the first week of January,”
Shapps added, “As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health.”
Experts opined that the quick response from the UK authorities was triggered by the anger the Nigerian government displayed, coupled with the threat of reciprocating similar gestures to UK citizens.
In recent times the government of President Buhari despite receiving criticisms over internal security, but its stance on foreign policies was applauded.
In a similar manner, the Nigerian Government has restricted the ban on Emirate Airlines, a UAE carrier when they followed the footsteps of the UK by denying Nigerian airlines three slots requested by Air Peace.
Consequently, The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu had announced the withdrawal of the winter schedule comprising 21 frequencies; 14 in Lagos and seven in Abuja, earlier approved for Emirates.
Meanwhile, the Airline was only left with a weekly flight to Abuja rather than accept the condition; Emirate suspended its flight operation into Nigeria which the Nigerian government did not shake.
In a dramatic twist, a few hours after the Emirates ban took effect, the Dubai Aviation Authorities granted the Nigerian Air Peace some slots as it demanded, not just at Sharjah Airport but the more commercially viable one in Dubai.
