Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, has disclosed that five governors have been denied flight approval since the closure of the airports and the lockdown order by President Muhammadu Buhari put in place to check the spread of COVID-19.
The minister said three out of the four governors who were denied flight approval were members of the All Progressives Congress. According to Sirika, two of the governors are from the South-east, two from South-south while one was from North-central.
He also noted that 98 percent of the flights approved and those to be approved will be COVID-19 related. He said that a few of them, maybe 1 percent may be either repatriation, request from the diplomatic community which must go through foreign affairs, or repatriation due to illness of another kind which will be medical-kind and those evacuations will also need a stamp of a teaching hospital.
He went further to explain: “However, I want to share with you a discussion I had on twitter with someone when I said we will not be able to open our airport and airspace as a result of the extension of the lockdown for normal operations and someone said; “Kindly stop all the VIPs shuttle going on. It makes no sense to lock citizens up and allow governors to stroll in and out of Abuja. In the first instance, they carried this virus into Nigeria, and now running around is not Okay.”
I said to the person that I agree with him but whatever is approved or whoever is approved to fly privately, governor or no governor is on an essential flight and it is added, and 98 percent is related to COVID-19.
On some flights flying around Abuja on Tuesday afternoon, he said: “I think it is occasioned by information dished out by the Nigerian Air Force that they will be carrying out flying activity this week to mark their week and I think what you see is the flight rehearsal.”
Hattip to The Nation
