The British High Commission on Sunday maintained that the United Kingdom would not reverse its travel ban on Nigeria despite a threat of retaliation by the Federal Government.
The High Commission spokesman, Dean Hurlock, said this in response to a statement by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, that the UK, Canada and Saudi Arabia would be put on Nigeria’s travel ban on Tuesday.
Hurlock maintained that Britain had made it clear that overseas travels would be monitored this year and that the UK was sticking to its “standard background lines.”
Responding to media enquiries, the spokesman was quoted as stating that “the UK Government propose sticking to our standard background lines on whether ‘x’ country will put us on the red list and avoid getting into hypothetical situations.
“The UK government has been clear that travel abroad will be different this year and countries may impose border measures at short notice in line with their own coronavirus policies”, Hurlock added.
According to him, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office travel advice was kept under constant review.
He, therefore, urged travellers to continue to check it for entry requirements of the destination they plan to visit.
Hurlock clarified: “Travellers can also sign up for e-mail alerts on GOV.UK to get the latest updates as soon as they happen. We are in regular conversations with other countries about their travel policies.” Hurlock explained.
It would be recalled that the UK government had stated that Nigeria would be added to the travel red list as from 4am on December 6 following 21 cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 reported in England, which were traced to Nigeria.
The government stressed that ”these are temporary measures that have been introduced to prevent further omicron cases from entering the UK and will be examined at the three-week review point on 20 December.”
In her comments, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, confirmed that Omicron cases in the UK had clear links to overseas travel from Nigeria and South Africa.
This is even as she maintained during an interview on Channels Television last Thursday that the travel ban was evidence-based.
Specifically, the High Commissioner disclosed that 19 out of 21 passengers with Omicron variant with Nigeria’s travel history flew directly to Britain from Nigeria.
In his response to the disclosure, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Sirika, was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as saying on Sunday that the Federal Government will also place travel ban on the UK, Canada, Argentina and Saudi Arabia as a reciprocal diplomatic measure to the travel restriction on Nigeria.
According to the minister, if those countries placed Nigeria on a red list, they lacked the diplomatic right to insist that their airlines should continue to fly into Nigeria on commercial operations.
He said: “There is also the case of Saudi Arabia that put Nigeria on the ban list. On Sunday, I participated in a meeting with the COVID-19 task force.
“We have given our input that it is not acceptable by us and we recommended that those Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Argentina also be put on the red list.
“As they did to us, if they do not allow our citizens into their countries; who are they coming, as airlines, to pick from our country?
“They are not supposed to come in. I am very sure in the next three days; Monday or Tuesday, all those countries will be put on the red list of COVID-19”, Sirika added.
The minister maintained that the affected countries’ airlines remained banned as Nigeria will also place the affected countries on red list.
