The Federal Government has said that it would now be using four
local airlines to evacuate Nigerians abroad back home.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffery Onyeama, made this
disclosure at the briefing of the Presidential Taskforce on
COVID-19.
He said, “Government is mindful of need to use local carriers.
Arrangements for Airlines for first batch of flights were not done
by government. Flights being arranged henceforth are all Nigerian
carriers; we intend to use only Nigerian Airlines henceforth.”
While apologizing for what went wrong with the transfer from
Lagos to Abuja for the evacuees from the UK, on Friday, and also
the hitches faced when they arrived in Abuja, he assured that
mechanisms have been put in place to ensure nothing of such happens
against.
“We have put in place mechanisms to ensure no such thing occurs
again,” he promised.
Onyeama said Nigeria has now evacuated over 600 Nigerians from
Dubai, London, and United States of America.
“I would like to thank all the Heads of our Missions in the UAE,
UK and US. They have all worked very hard to deliver results. We
are getting to the maximum capacity we can cope with, in terms of
care, at this time. We will, therefore, be staggering our
evacuation flights, and dealing with the evacuees in place first,
before bringing others back,” Onyeama said.
According to him, there are still many Nigerians out there, who
want to return home, from China, India, France, Canada, Lebanon,
Egypt, Sudan and other countries.
“We have evacuated Nigerians from Dubai, London and the US.
Well, first of all, I’d like to express our profound gratitude to
the heads of missions in the United Arab Emirates, in London and in
New York. They all worked extremely hard and the consulates in the
embassies and were able to deliver very good results. I really
thank them for their very, very hard work.
“The flight from the UK, unfortunately, was a unique flight as I
mentioned, it’s the only one were going to attempt. What we
attempted in that case was to drop the passengers in Lagos and then
transfer them with a completely different carrier to Abuja.
Unfortunately, a number of things went not the way we wanted them
to go and for that, we apologise most profusely to all the
passengers; those who had to wait a significant amount of time in
Lagos before boarding the connecting flight to Abuja. It was
totally unforeseen. Something that would have been difficult to
address before hand; the crew of the connecting carrier were not
able to [……….]
We were fully engaged during the whole process, trying to get
that plane to take off quickly but as I said, unfortunately this
did not happen and we apologise truly to all those passengers. And
also in Abuja, there were logistics issues that again created some
delay and there again, profound apologies.
“We have put in place mechanisms now to ensure that no such
thing occurs again and we’re really taking all the strictest
measures we need to take and we saw the benefits of those
mechanisms we put in place, and for the flight that came in
yesterday from the United States, everything went seamlessly and
that is how we would want to keep that going, going forward.
“Now, we have over 600 evacuees in various accommodation in
Lagos and Abuja and we’re reaching, as I understand from our
medical people, a saturation point, the maximum we can really cope
with and be able to deliver adequately and professionally the
services in their care that we’re supposed to. So, this would mean
that we would be staggering our flights in evacuating Nigerians and
making sure that we deal with the ones that we have in place before
bringing back others. But we certainly would hope that in an
adequate period of time, we would be able to bring back some of the
others out there. And there are many still out there; Nigerians in
China, India, Canada, South Africa, Sudan, France, Lebanon, Egypt,
and all these really calls into question our capacity to absorb
such large numbers and clearly, our system is being strained, so we
really have to take it easier and also to ensure that we can
deliver optimally as we’re supposed to.”
On the issue of Nigerian carriers he said: “The carrier that
came from the United Arab Emirates was not a government-organised
one and the one from the UK was one that was coming already, and
the one that came from the US was one that had been arranged pretty
much a private sector initiative.
“But the government is mindful of the importance and the need to
use local carriers and I’m happy to say that the pipeline flights,
the flights that we are in the process of arranging, are all
Nigerian carriers. So, henceforth, going forward, we hope that
we’ll be using only Nigerian carriers.”
The Federal Government has said that it would now be using four
local airlines to evacuate Nigerians abroad back home.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffery Onyeama, made this
disclosure at the briefing of the Presidential Taskforce on
COVID-19.
He said, “Government is mindful of need to use local carriers.
Arrangements for Airlines for first batch of flights were not done
by government. Flights being arranged henceforth are all Nigerian
carriers; we intend to use only Nigerian Airlines henceforth.”
While apologizing for what went wrong with the transfer from
Lagos to Abuja for the evacuees from the UK, on Friday, and also
the hitches faced when they arrived in Abuja, he assured that
mechanisms have been put in place to ensure nothing of such happens
against.
“We have put in place mechanisms to ensure no such thing occurs
again,” he promised.
Onyeama said Nigeria has now evacuated over 600 Nigerians from
Dubai, London, and United States of America.
“I would like to thank all the Heads of our Missions in the UAE,
UK and US. They have all worked very hard to deliver results. We
are getting to the maximum capacity we can cope with, in terms of
care, at this time. We will, therefore, be staggering our
evacuation flights, and dealing with the evacuees in place first,
before bringing others back,” Onyeama said.
According to him, there are still many Nigerians out there, who
want to return home, from China, India, France, Canada, Lebanon,
Egypt, Sudan and other countries.
“We have evacuated Nigerians from Dubai, London and the US.
Well, first of all, I’d like to express our profound gratitude to
the heads of missions in the United Arab Emirates, in London and in
New York. They all worked extremely hard and the consulates in the
embassies and were able to deliver very good results. I really
thank them for their very, very hard work.
“The flight from the UK, unfortunately, was a unique flight as I
mentioned, it’s the only one were going to attempt. What we
attempted in that case was to drop the passengers in Lagos and then
transfer them with a completely different carrier to Abuja.
Unfortunately, a number of things went not the way we wanted them
to go and for that, we apologise most profusely to all the
passengers; those who had to wait a significant amount of time in
Lagos before boarding the connecting flight to Abuja. It was
totally unforeseen. Something that would have been difficult to
address before hand; the crew of the connecting carrier were not
able to [……….]
We were fully engaged during the whole process, trying to get
that plane to take off quickly but as I said, unfortunately this
did not happen and we apologise truly to all those passengers. And
also in Abuja, there were logistics issues that again created some
delay and there again, profound apologies.
“We have put in place mechanisms now to ensure that no such
thing occurs again and we’re really taking all the strictest
measures we need to take and we saw the benefits of those
mechanisms we put in place, and for the flight that came in
yesterday from the United States, everything went seamlessly and
that is how we would want to keep that going, going forward.
“Now, we have over 600 evacuees in various accommodation in
Lagos and Abuja and we’re reaching, as I understand from our
medical people, a saturation point, the maximum we can really cope
with and be able to deliver adequately and professionally the
services in their care that we’re supposed to. So, this would mean
that we would be staggering our flights in evacuating Nigerians and
making sure that we deal with the ones that we have in place before
bringing back others. But we certainly would hope that in an
adequate period of time, we would be able to bring back some of the
others out there. And there are many still out there; Nigerians in
China, India, Canada, South Africa, Sudan, France, Lebanon, Egypt,
and all these really calls into question our capacity to absorb
such large numbers and clearly, our system is being strained, so we
really have to take it easier and also to ensure that we can
deliver optimally as we’re supposed to.”
On the issue of Nigerian carriers he said: “The carrier that
came from the United Arab Emirates was not a government-organised
one and the one from the UK was one that was coming already, and
the one that came from the US was one that had been arranged pretty
much a private sector initiative.
“But the government is mindful of the importance and the need to
use local carriers and I’m happy to say that the pipeline flights,
the flights that we are in the process of arranging, are all
Nigerian carriers. So, henceforth, going forward, we hope that
we’ll be using only Nigerian carriers.”