By Chinedu Eze

The United Arab Emirates mega carrier, Emirates Airlines, has announced that it would start airlifting Nigerian passengers from Lagos and Abuja to its hub in Dubai from February 28, 2021.

Emirates spokesperson made this known in a statement made available to THISDAY yesterday saying the airline would continue to operate its inbound flight to Nigeria.

The statement stated that the suspension of flights from Nigeria was in line with UAE Government directive.

It also reiterated that Nigerian passengers would not be allowed to transit from any other airport outside Nigeria to Dubai, disclosing that Nigerians who arrived in Dubai from transit destinations were not allowed to come into the country.

According to the statement, “In line with the government directives, passenger services from Nigeria (Lagos and Abuja) to Dubai are temporarily suspended until February 28, 2021. Customers from both Abuja and Lagos will not be accepted for travel prior to or including this date. “Passengers who have been to or connected through Nigeria in the last 14 days are not allowed entry into the UAE (whether terminating in or connecting through Dubai).

“Emirates flights from Dubai to Lagos and Abuja will continue to operate as per the normal schedule. We regret the inconvenience caused, and affected customers should contact their booking agent or Emirates call centre for rebooking. Emirates remains committed to Nigeria, and we look forward to resuming passenger services to Dubai for our customers when conditions allow.”

Last week, the federal government stopped Emirates flights from Nigeria when the airline started conducting Rapid Antigen Test (RDT) from February 1, 2021, and made it the final condition for airlifting Nigerian passengers to Dubai, insisting that passengers would be administered the test four hours before their flight.

This was in addition to Nigerian Government approved 72 hours COVID-19 test certificate for passengers before travelling.

But after securing a lift on the ban by the federal government, Emirates cancelled its flights from February 6, 2021.

By Dayo Johnson, Dapo Akinrefon, Shina Abubakar and James Ogunnaike

The fear of Fulani herdsmen is now the beginning of wisdom in the South-West as commuters and drivers now resort to prayer and fasting before setting out on their journey.

Several unpleasant encounters with highway criminals by both drivers and commuters have left travellers to conclude that they are no longer safe in the South-West.

Also, there is a general fear in the mind of travellers because of the spate of kidnapping, armed robbery, and other criminalities on the roads.

Travellers and motorists, who spoke with Vanguard, expressed worry over the safety of the roads in the region.

Despite the coming on board of the Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Amotekun, motorists feel they are not safe on the highways.

We embark on prayer session before travelling--Commuters

A trader in Osogbo, Comfort Kehinde, disclosed that whenever she intends travelling out of the state, she embarks on a prayer session in the church.

She noted that the fear of wanting to travel is enough to increase her blood pressure than the travelling itself as her husband and children regularly warn her of the dangers on the road.

She said: "Whenever I intend to travel, I am always faced with two fears, banditry and kidnapping. From the time I board a car, till I get to my destination, it is always perpetual fear.

"Sometimes, I embark on fasting and prayers a week before I travel for fear of being kidnapped or robbed by bandits."

Also speaking, a commuter from Ogun State, Mr. Rotimi Olanrewaju, described travelling on Nigerian roads as a nightmare, putting into consideration the high rate of insecurity in the country.

According to Olanrewaju, the incessant kidnappings, killings, and other forms of insecurity on the nation's highways had put fear in the minds of the people.

He said: "The fear of kidnapping and armed robbery, among others, have enveloped major highways, especially in the South-West. This is gradually affecting the socio-economic activities in the region.

"The Federal Government should beef up security on Nigerian highways to reduce the incessant kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery that have become a daily occurrence."

Also speaking with Vanguard, a lawyer and rights activist, Morakinyo Ogele said that the state of insecurity in the region has assumed a frightening dimension.

Ogele lamented that the catalogue of the evils perpetrated by the herdsmen in the region remains countless.

He said: "It is no longer news that some criminal Fulani herdsmen are daily wreaking havoc in the South-West.

"The cocktails of their criminal activities are unprecedented; the Yoruba never witnessed these atrocities being perpetrated by the Fulani herdsmen.

"Travelling from one town to another or any state in the South-West, you need fasting and prayer before you set out on such journey.

"Chiefs, students, market women, farmers, Obas are not spared in the hands of these satanic messengers.

"We must prepare ourselves to face any killer and those who are criminally-minded among the Fulani.

"I, therefore, call on the people in Yoruba land to brace up for self-defense."

Travelling on the highway is a serious risk -- NURTW

On his part, Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Ijetu unit, Kamorudeen Agbowo, lamented the state of insecurity on the roads, especially in the aftermath of the EndSARS protest.

Agbowo said: "Travelling on the highway is a serious risk, there are some routes that some drivers will not dare to go, especially, Ikare, Ekiti, Kogi and Abuja routes for fear of kidnapping and banditry.

"After the EndSARS protest, the roads were more vulnerable to attacks as the protest exposed police weaknesses, thereby, energising criminals."

The NURTW chairman in Ondo State, Comrade Jacob Adebo said his members need protection as criminal herders attack and kidnap them with impunity.

He said: "Our members now pray for safety, not that they don't pray before, but this kind of prayer is because of the present security situation in the country. Nobody is safe again. We are all living in fear.

"But with the recent development in Ondo State as regards the quit notice to herdsmen occupying the government forest reserves, I think with time, travellers would heave a sigh of relief."

Sanity'll return to our roads soon - Osun, Ogun, Ondo Amotekun Commanders

But assuring travellers and drivers of their safety, the Amotekun Corps Commandants for Osun, Ogun and Ondo states, said they are doing everything necessary to secure the highways across the region.

When contacted, the Amotekun Commandant in Osun State, Brig.-Gen. Bashir Adewinmbi (retd), said the corps is not working in isolation but collaborating with other Amotekun in the region to return sanity to the roads.

Adewinmbi said: "We are aware that the roads are not safe but we are working to improve the situation. Part of our plan is to establish patrol spots across our roads in collaboration with Amotekun in other states and security agencies.

"We are also exploiting areas of common interests with our partners and very soon, sanity will return to our roads."

No cause for alarm - Ogun Amotekun Commandant

Also speaking, the Amotekun Corps Commandant in Ogun State, Mr. David Akinremi, allayed the fear of residents of the state as well as travellers, especially with the current insecurity challenge facing the South-West.

Akinremi said: "The Amotekun in Ogun State has taken off because I have been appointed as the Commander of the Corps. I am sure a lot of things were considered before the appointment and to the glory of God, I have taken over.

"We are prepared, we are taking our time to ensure that we get the best available grassroots men who will be able to function adequately towards achieving the vision and purpose of establishing the agency. We have been given the go-ahead to commence recruitment and we are working out modalities to ensure that we have quality men in line with the Ogun standard of excellence.

"I want to assure our people that they don't need to entertain any fear. We have come to serve them. Our people have no cause to fear, we are on top of the situation. Notwithstanding that operatives have not taken off, we are doing some strategic work underground on the security situation on hand, not just within the state but in the South-West as a whole.

"We assure of protection of lives and property for everybody living in the state. Wherever you come from does not matter. What is important is that we must live together in an atmosphere of peace and harmony and respect of the rights of all.

"There is no security without human beings and no human beings without security. It is a symbiotic relationship. The work of security agencies, at whatever level, cannot be done without the support of the people. That is why we want to build a people-oriented organisation."

We're rooting out criminals elements -- Ondo Amotekun Commandant

Also, the Commander of Amotekun in Ondo State, Chief Adetunji Adeleye said the corps has set up an outfit tagged: Operation Clean Up to root out criminal elements across the state.

Adeleye said over 120 suspects have been arrested by the Operation Clean-Up team within the last two months.

The Special Adviser to the governor on Security Affairs, Alhaji Dojumo said: "As I talk to you, we have created flashpoint across the three senatorial districts and deployed security patrols including military personnel and federal highway patrol to those places.

"We have military checkpoints, safer highway patrol to areas where criminal elements operate.

"We have them between Owo/Ose highway, Akure/Ogbese highway, USO/Owo highway and other flashpoints in the Northern Senatorial District.

"In the Southern Senatorial Districts, we have checkpoints and have deployed security personnel to Akotogbo, lgbekebo, Okitipupa, Erinje, Ilutuntun, Ore, Omotosho and other areas.

"In the Central Senatorial District, our security personnel are at home to cover the district."

By Felipe Hernandez and Tom Orlik

Immigration is at an inflection point, with rich nations concerned about the economic and social consequences of increased arrivals while poorer countries are reliant on the cash flows provided by their expatriates. For the global economy the path chosen will be an important determinant of growth potential. Bloomberg Economics calculations show that the U.S., Canada and Australia are the biggest winners from inbound immigration, and Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Vietnam benefit most from foreign workers’ remittances.

BY  Chinedu Eze

Last week Emirates Airlines had a spat with the federal government over its plan to introduce COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test (RDT) for passengers to be administered four hours before take-off of their flight.

The federal government in response banned and unbanned the airline within 24 hours and since then Emirates has cancelled all its Lagos-Dubai and Abuja-Dubai flights with no indication of when the cancellation would end.

This antigen test was in addition to the PTF-COVID-19 approved 72 hours coronavirus test for international passengers leaving the country.

Emirates made it known in statement that it would embark on RDT test from February 1, 2021 for all its Nigerian passengers to Dubai and at the same time announced that there would be no more transit passengers to Dubai by other airlines.

The airline said it was submitting to the directive of the UAE authorities that decisively wished to ensure that nobody with COVID-19 case is allowed into the country.

But on February 4, 2021, the federal government through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) banned the airlines outbound flights and allowed its inbound flights, giving it 72 hours to rescind its decision on RDT tests on passengers leaving the country.

Government argued that the airline would not embark on such test until Nigeria was able to provide the necessary infrastructure for the test to take place.

But NCAA later issued another statement, indicating that Emirates had accepted to drop the RDT test, which prompted the regulatory authority to lift the ban.

But since the ban was lifted, Emirates has cancelled all its flights from Lagos and Abuja to Dubai and it issued a statement to that effect, saying that the cancellation would continue till further notice; thus indicating that it does not know when it would start airlifting Nigerians to Dubai.

President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Susan Akporiaye told THISDAY that in as much as Emirates wanted to prevent travellers with COVID-19 cases from getting into Dubai, it also wanted to use that opportunity to cut down competition from other airlines. She said Emirates is an airline known for its professionalism, noting that the idea of RDT was not well thought out by the airline before its implementation.

“If you look at that decision, you might want to say that they are using it to take care of their competitors. Because I have information that some other airlines have approached the UAE authorities and demanded to also conduct the antigen test.

“For instance, I spoke to the country manager of Ethiopian Airlines, and I was told that they approached the UAE government and requested they be allowed to conduct the same antigen process at Addis Ababa, but they said no, totally stopping them. It is the same with Egypt Air. “So, the airline made it look as if they are using this COVID-19 to get rid of their competitors, although I don’t want to believe that is the case. But if you look at the indices, that’s the way it looks like, because if that’s not the case, then you shouldn’t stop other airlines from conducting the antigen test,” she said.

She also noted that by cancelling its flights after the federal government had lifted the ban against the airline, Emirates made Nigerian government to blink first and now wants to have the last laugh. However, travel expert and organiser of Akwaaba African Travel Market, Ikechi Uko, noted that Emirates and the UAE authorities really wanted to ensure that there were no more COVID-19 cases in Dubai and had taken such drastic measure with RDT.

Uko remarked that Emirates had good intentions but its approach was wrong and that was why the federal government misunderstood its intentions, seeing it as a strategy to dominate the market.

“There is trouble in Dubai on issues concerning COVID-19 and that was why the UAE authorities took that measure, but the way Emirates approached the matter to Nigeria made the federal government misinterpret the airline’s intentions. UAE has the right to carry out its COVID-19 protocols but they cannot determine for Nigeria how she would carry out its own protocol,” Uko said.

THISDAY learnt that the European Union has also banned Emirates from bringing in-bound passengers to destinations in the region, while UK authorities allowed the airline to take outbound passengers but banned it from bringing passengers to the country.

But spokesman of NCAA, Sam Adurogboye told THISDAY that Emirates perceived aloofness is because Nigeria does not have strong and big airlines that could compete effectively with it on the Nigerian route; that if Nigeria has a national carrier or if the existing airlines grow big and strong to compete effectively with foreign carriers, Emirates would not so dominate the market. “But they cannot afford to ignore Nigeria for long because I know the millions of dollars they make from our country,” Adurogboye said.

Stories by Chinedu Eze The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has issued the United Nigeria Airlines an Air Operators Certificate (AOC) with number UNA/AOC/01-21/961, after meeting the requirements as stated in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations.

The AOC would be valid till January 31, 2023, when it would be expected the airline would renew it. With this, the new indigenous carrier is set to commence operations.

The airline is one of the few airlines on the line to secure AOC after the regulatory authority has adjudged them worthy and after meeting the stringent criteria, which include demonstration flights for several hours. AOC is a document issued by NCAA to show approval for an airline to commence flight services in Nigeria.

United Nigeria Airlines has earlier indicated that it would make Enugu its operational hub. The document which was issued February 1, 2021 and signed by the Director General NCAA read,” This certificate certifies that United Nigeria Airlines Company Limited has been approved to perform commercial air operations, as defined in the attached operations.”

In January, United Nigeria Airlines carried out demonstration flights to show readiness to operate from Lagos to Enugu, Owerri and some other airports with its Embraer E145s.

The new airline has also indicated that it would operate domestic flights from Enugu-Abuja-Enugu, Owerri-Abuja-Owerri, Enugu-Lagos-Enugu, Owerri-Lagos-Owerri, Abuja-Asaba-Abuja, Port Harcourt-Lagos-Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt-Abuja-Port Harcourt.

Despite the devastation of COVID-19 and subsequent gloomy air travel market, some entrepreneurs are still investing in airline business, looking at the future.

Industry observers while congratulating the airline, pointed out that the air travel market is tepid and therefore needs good strategy and resilience to survive.

tihad Airways has claimed that it will be the world’s first airline with 100 per cent of its operating pilots and cabin crew vaccinated against COVID-19.

The airline began vaccinating its crews earlier few weeks ago along with its Dubai-based counterpart, Emirates.

“We proactively made the vaccine available to all our employees to not only help combat the effects of COVID-19 but to make travellers feel confident and reassured the next time they fly with us,” said CEO of Etihad Aviation Group, Tony Douglas.

“We are the only airline in the world to make COVID-19 testing mandatory for every passenger and crew member before every flight and now, we’re the first airline in the world with 100 percent vaccinated crew on-board.” Douglas, who has already received the Sinopharm vaccination, urged all Etihad employees to get vaccinated early on.

VP Medical Services and CSR, Etihad Aviation Group, Dr. Nadia Bastaki said, “Following the national vaccination programme, we worked tirelessly to become an approved COVID-19 vaccination clinic to support our staff, and their dependants, be able to easily access the vaccine.

“Since December 2020, we have been offering in-house vaccination appointments to our employees and their loved ones to ensure we are focused on our employee’s wellbeing.”

However, Emirates has widened the scope of its vaccination programme but has stopped short of making vaccinations compulsory for operating crew.

NIGERIA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Feb, 2021 ) :Nigerian refugees mostly from the restive northeast state of Borno who fled to Cameroon due to Boko Haram insurgency will be brought back to Nigeria later in the month and early next month, a Nigerian official said on Friday.

The repatriation of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon has been scheduled for Feb. 27 and March 7 following a meeting in Maroua, Cameroon, of representatives from Nigeria's Federal government, its Borno state government and from the government of Cameroon, Borno state governor's spokesperson Isa Gusau said in a statement reaching Xinhua on Friday.

"A tripartite commission meeting held on Wednesday night has fixed Feb.

27 and March 7, 2021, to commence the voluntary repatriation of Nigerian refugees toward resettlement in Borno," Gusau said.

"More than 46,000 Nigerians, mostly from Borno, have been taking refuge in Minawao refugee camp, located in Mokolo, far north region of Cameroon," the spokesperson said.

The extremist group Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria since 2009. The group has also extended its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Boko Haram insurgency has displaced nearly 2.4 million people in the Lake Chad Basin.

State and territory governments across Australia are tightening border restrictions with Victoria after thousands of interstate travellers were potentially exposed to COVID-19 at Melbourne Airport.

There are now 13 coronavirus cases linked to Melbourne's Holiday Inn, with the state now entering a five-day snap lockdown.

There are also new potential community infection sites across Melbourne.

Of most concern to health authorities is the Brunetti cafe at Melbourne Airport.

An infected staff member worked there on Tuesday - potentially spreading the virus to interstate travellers before they boarded their planes.

All states and territorities except for New South Wales have now implemented tough border controls on those coming in from Victoria, while NSW is choosing to mimick Victoria's hard lockdown for those coming across the border.

By Laura Gottesdiener, Frank Jack Daniel, Ted Hesson

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico (Reuters) - In the days before U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Mexican soldiers patrolling the banks of the wide Suchiate River found few migrants amid the flow of trade across the water from Guatemala.

Exclusive: Former PM warns the poorest will suffer most until countries agree digital document showing vaccination and test statu

By Paul Waugh

Digital health passports will become “inevitable” in the UK and around the world as the public demand reassurance about coronavirus safety, Tony Blair has said.

Speaking to Radio 4’s Week in Westminster, the former Labour prime minister said that a document that combined vaccination and testing status would allow nations to defend themselves better against the virus.

Blair warned that the poorest at home and abroad were suffering most from continued lockdowns and urged Boris Johnson to use the UK’s hosting of the G7 summit to speed up the process of global cooperation on a standardised Covid-status “passport”.

He predicted that rapid coronavirus tests would become the norm at mass spectator events and the workplace as the public sought reassurance about safety at work and places of leisure.

The former premier also said the pandemic should be viewed as a “national security issue” for every country – and admitted that when he was in power dealing with bird flu he had failed to grasp the need to invest much greater sums in anti-virus resilience.

A Cabinet sub-committee met on Friday to discuss plans for a vaccine and testing certificates for when global travel resumes. Ministers want an internationally recognised system.

In his interview, Blair said that as vaccines rolled out across the world and countries moved to reopen their borders, digital health passports would be seen as an invaluable weapon in containing the spread of the virus.

“When you start to reopen your borders again, you’ll want to know the disease status of people coming into your country,” he said.

“Once vaccination really starts to be widespread, of course you’re going to ask for proof of what the vaccination status is and the reason for that is that the early evidence seems to be that if you’re vaccinated, you’re less likely to transmit the disease.

“And because of these new variants and because of the mutations that can occur, I think it’s just inevitable and therefore it’s best to start now on trying to devise common standards. If you start to do this on a vast scale, you’re going to need the technology that allows you to do it digitally.”

Blair, whose push for ID cards met with fierce civil liberties opposition when he was in office, suggested that a combined vaccine and test status document would have popular backing.

Pressed on whether there was a case for a domestic health passport and whether that may unfairly discriminate against some of the population, he said: “People look at this as if it’s a matter of what’s fair or unfair and of course fairness is an important component, but it’s also a matter of what is obvious.

“Suppose you were to go back into your workplace today, you would prefer to know that the people you were going back to work with had been tested. You would prefer to know that they’d been vaccinated when vaccination becomes available to the majority of the population. These things are just inevitable.”

PA

Blair insisted that he could not see domestic health passports becoming mandatory, but said that the public would probably drive demand, just as they would with widespread use of rapid lateral flow tests to check if someone was negative or positive.

“I think it’s very difficult to make it actually compulsory. But I think there is again an inevitability about vaccination, enabling you to do certain things, and you know we’re not complete masters of this ourselves it’s a question of how the rest of the world is also going to look at it,” he said.

“I still think there’s a very, very strong case for using rapid, point-of-use, cheap antigen tests as an aid to this, not as a substitute for other measures, but as complementary to them.

“To come back to this issue of proof of status, I think it’s unlikely people will want to go to large events, unless they think they’re going to be mixing with people who at least have given some sort of proof of their status.”

Silkie Carlo, director of UK Big Brother Watch, said: “I think he has very little moral authority to talk on these issues and of course he was a champion of ID cards which the British public completely rejected and that’s really what a vaccine passport scheme could easily become.

“Let’s be very cautious of language like inevitability, which is often used by people with power to tell people without power, what they’re going to have.

“Vaccine passports would be discriminatory, they would be coercive, they would almost certainly lead to authoritarian identity systems. It could be the biggest expansion of the surveillance state that we’ve seen in western democracies.”

But Prof Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol, said his research on “immunity passports” – issued to those who have antibodies after contracting the disease – found that up to 80% of the British public were supportive of the idea.

Blair is understood to have been in contact with both Johnson and Keir Starmer in recent months as his research institute produced alternative strategies for combating the virus.

His proposal to speed up vaccination rollout, by offering a first dose to as many people as possible before a second dose, has been adopted by Johnson.

In the interview, Blair said there should be a real urgency from richer nations to roll out the vaccines to poorest countries because with Covid “disease anywhere is disease everywhere”.

“In the end, even those countries that have gone through a policy of eradication because they’ve been able to do so like for example, New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, at some point, they’ve got to open back up again.

“You’ve got to do whatever you need to do at this moment in time, but unless we get international business flowing again, and physical interaction happening again, then the economic damage is going to be absolutely devastating.

“And it’s going to affect the poorest people in the world most. In fact, it is affecting the poorest people in our own countries most.”

Asked about Labour’s handling of the pandemic, Blair said the party was in an “incredibly difficult position because, of course they want to hold the government to account, but they’ve got to do that in a way that doesn’t look churlish or mean spirited because most people in the country know whatever government’s in power, this is a nightmare to deal with and is extremely tough”.

He added that Labour “can” win the next election and pointed out that the pandemic was “in a sense not a real situation” to judge the Opposition.

“I think Keir Starmer has done the right things in pulling the Labour party back frankly from the Corbyn years.

“The Labour Party can rebuild at the pace that it wants to rebuild. But there’s no doubt at all that it’s only a rebuilt Labour Party, one that is back within the mainstream of British politics, that can win. I’ve got no doubt at all that that’s where he wants to get to.”