The federal government said Monday that it would now be using four local airlines to evacuate Nigerians stranded abroad as a result of the outbreak of COVID-19.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffery Onyeama, at the at the briefing of the Presidential Taskforce on the Control of COVID-19.
“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,” he said.
While apologizing for the wrong steps in the transfer of the UK evacuees from Lagos to Abuja on Friday, the minister assured that mechanisms have been put in place to ensure smooth operations.
“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,” he said.
The minister said there are still many Nigerians in China, India, France, Canada, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan and other countries that want to return home.
“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,” he said.
