Omicron: British Airways bars Nigerian travellers on its flights

Following the placement of Nigeria on red list as a result of Omicron, a variant of COVID-19, the British national carrier, British Airways has barred Nigerian travellers onboard its flights.

But an aviation analyst, Group Captain John Ojikutu reacting to the development argued that the ban was more of economic and diplomatic issue rather than Omicron variant of COVID-19 as claimed by the British airline.

The analyst suspected that British Airways’ $300 million was trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria, saying that
may be the major reason the carrier decided to stop Nigerians from entering its country.

Ojikutu said, if it continued to operate into Nigeria, the trapped fund would continue to climb.

The Federal government described the red list placement as emotional and unscientific, claims of Omicron in Nigeria.

Travel agents in Nigeria have been notified through a circular by the management of British Airways.

However, British Air­ways said only British or Irish nationals or custom­ers who have residence rights in the UK would be allowed onboard its flights to UK, but would be re­quired to quarantine in a government facility.

The airline emphasised that it would continue to closely monitor the situa­tion and adjust its sched­ule accordingly; stressing that all flights from Lagos to London Heathrow had been retimed.

The circular said that this was due to restric­tions at London Heathrow to support arrivals from a red list country and direct­ed the travel agents to refer to their Global Distribution System (GDS) for up to date flight numbers and timings.

“All customers travelling from Nigeria must follow the UK government’s rules on arrivals from a red-list country and have a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result within the 48 hours prior to their de­parture from Nigeria.

“Arrivals from Nige­ria will land at Heathrow Terminal 5 where any customer whose journey terminates, will be taken on a bus to Terminal 4 for processing prior to being escorted to their pre-pur­chased quarantine hotel. Customer’s bags will also be taken directly to Termi­nal 4. Any customers wish­ing to transfer must follow the rules for their final destination. More guidance can be found at gov.uk.

But, Grp. Capt John Oji­kutu (rtd), Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Centurion Securities Limited, has said that the decision to ban Nigeria by the airline many not be unconnected to the airline’s $300 million air ticket funds trapped in the CBN for months.

Speaking with Daily Independent in Lagos, Oji­kutu insisted that more Nigerians are travelling as inbound and outbound pas­sengers on British Airways and Virgin Nigeria, which meant that its air ticket funds would continue to be trapped in Nigeria, rather than repatriating such as expected.

“We have more Nigeri­ans going to UK on British Airways and Virgin Atlan­tic Airways; we should be looking more inward than COVID-19, Delta now Omi­cron variants? Carrying more Nigerians outbound Nigeria and inbound UK means more of their mon­ies getting trapped in our CBN in addition to over $300 million yet to be trans­ferred before the Omicron. The war now by my under­standing is more of eco­nomic, political and diplo­matic, rather than Omicron variant restrictions.

“What economic sense would it make for BA to be coming to Nigeria under its COVID-19 rules when 90 percent of its inbound and outbound passengers are Nigerians? Note that I said that issues now between Nigeria and UK are more of political, economic and diplomatic. The battle start­ed with BA saying it would not sell tickets to outbound passengers from Nigeria; why? Because of trapped $300 million sales tickets money in the CBN.”

Meanwhile, the Feder­al Government has con­demned the red list placed on Nigeria by the UK gov­ernment.

The government insisted it was “unjust, unfair, puni­tive, indefensible, discrim­inatory and emotional,” rather than scientific.

Speaking with journal­ists in Abuja on Monday, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, said the de­cision to place Nigeria on the red-list just because of less than two dozen cases of COVID-19 Omicron variant was uncalled for.

Mohammed wondered why British citizens and residents were still al­lowed to come in from Ni­geria, while non-residents from the same country are banned, maintaining that the two group of people are coming from the same country, but being subject­ed to different conditions.

“Gentlemen, let me use this opportunity to high­light the fact that travel ban, the type that has been slammed on some African countries, is a knee-jerk reaction that can only be detrimental to our quest to most conclusively tackle this pandemic.

“Instead of these reflex responses that are driven by fear, rather than science, why can’t the world take a serious look at the issue of access to vaccines, and en­sure that it is based on the principles grounded in the right of every human to en­joy the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, political belief, economic or any oth­er social condition,” he said.

He accused many of the developed countries of us­ing the advantage of their resources or relationship with vaccine companies to sign agreements with man­ufacturers to supply their countries with vaccines ahead of making them available for use by other countries.

He alleged that many of those countries like Britain, United States, Ja­pan and European Union bought millions of doses of the vaccines ahead of production.

“Some of these coun­tries bought doses five times the size of their popu­lation, while others, mostly in Africa, have little or no access to vaccines. This is the real issue to address, in­stead of choosing the easy path of travel bans, which the UN Secretary Gener­al called travel apartheid. Let the world know that no one is safe until everyone is safe,” he added.

Credit: Independent