The Federal Government has explained that the Canadian Government denied landing right to Nigerian airline (Airpeace), which was scheduled to evacuate Nigerians from Canada because of the Covid-19 on the grounds that the Nigerian carrier did not have license to undertake commercial flights to that country and was not known for commercial flights.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, made this known while fielding questions during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the Covid-19 in Abuja on Thursday.
“This is the case indeed that the Canadian Government denied landing right on the grounds that this particular Nigerian carrier did not have license to undertake commercial flights to that country and was not known to that country for commercial flights,” Onyeama said.
He also assured that the Nigerian High Commissioner in Canada is engaging with the Canadian Government on this issue even as he expressed hope that the decision would be reversed.
“The argument which he (High Commissioner) is putting forward, which is a strong argument is that this is not a regular commercial flight to Canada to take passengers but that this was an emergency flight and there is a difference between the two. So, negotiations are ongoing and we hope there will be a positive result,” the Minister added.
The federal government has so far evacuated about 600 Nigerians from United Arab Emirates (UAE), United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) as part of measures to bring back about 4,000 Nigerians from all over the world that are willing to return to the country following the Covid-19 pandemic.
