The Nigerian Government has revealed that 5 Governors have been denied approval to fly out of their states amidst the lockdown in place to curb the spread of COVID-19.
POLITICS NIGERIA learned this during a Presidential task force briefing on COVID-19 on Tuesday. Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika made the statement while dismissing rumours that the government was giving special approvals to the elite to fly amidst the lockdown.
“Every single flight that you will see, every single one that we will approve will be an essential flight. And those essential flights 98 per cent of them will be connected to COVID-19. A few of them might be a diplomatic request from the diplomatic community which must go through foreign affairs ministry, or it might be evacuation due to illness of other kind and those evacuations may also need a staff of a teaching hospital like I said before.”
“On not reopening airports due to extension of the lockdown, trust me, whoever is approved to fly privately, governor or not governor, is on an essential trip and 98 per cent is related to COVID-19.”
“There is no exception to governors. I have denied several of such flights including two governors from South-South, two from South- East. Meanwhile, three of them are members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and one is from North Central.” he said.
It will be recalled that the air travel in Nigeria has been cancelled for another two weeks as the government battles to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
How many states of the South-South and South-East are controled by APC to warrant the numbers of your party govs from these states to be denied permission as you claimed?