The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo is set to depart Nigeria tonight to the United Arab Emirates, UAE, where he is expected to join President Bola Tinubu and other government functionaries in a bid to resolve the Emirates Airline flight suspension to Nigeria, visa ban and other diplomatic issues.
Following the diplomatic rows between Nigeria and the UAE, the country’s airlines suspended its flight operations into the country and placed a visa ban on Nigerians.
Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates have had a positive diplomatic relationship in the past.
In 2009 the UAE established its embassy in Nigeria. In December 2020 a memorandum of understanding was executed between Nigeria and the UAE to provide a platform for both countries to engage each other bilaterally.
In February 2021, the Federal Government of Nigeria stopped the UAE national carrier, Emirates airline from subjecting Nigerian travelers to additional rapid antigen test as against its stipulated negative PCR test at the Lagos and Abuja airports before departure.
Emirates airline then shut down flights to and from Nigeria owing to the disagreement between the airline and the aviation authorities in Nigeria on the propriety of subjecting passengers travelling from Nigeria to emergency COVID-19 protocols.
After an interface between the authorities of the aviation ministry and Emirates airline, flights resumed, but the Emirates airline continued to conduct test for passengers before departure from Nigeria, a development the Federal Government frowned at and thus suspended the airline from flying to and from Nigeria.
Following this development, there were allegations that hundreds of legal resident Nigerians living in UAE are losing their jobs on account of the refusal of the authorities to renew their work permit which offends the letters of bilateral agreements which both nations are signatory to and the speculations that the actions of the UAE authorities, was a calculated attempt to pressure the Nigerian Government into accepting their conditions of service for their national airline that may have lost humongous revenue from the Nigeria route.
