Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has revealed that he has denied five governors flight approval, since the closure of the airports and the lockdown order by President Muhammadu Buhari to curb the COVID-19 outbreak.
Two of the governors are from the South-east, two from South-south, while one was from North-central.
“Every single flight that we approved and will be approved will be an essential flight and 98 percent of the essential flight will be connected to COVID-19.
“A few of them, maybe 1 percent may be either repatriation, requests from the diplomatic community, which must go through foreign affairs, or repatriation due to illness of another kind which will be medical-kind and those evacuations will also need a stamp of a teaching hospital.
“There is no exception to governors. I have denied several of such flights. Including two governors from South-south, two from South-east and by the way, three of them are members of the APC and I think one is from North-central.
“For a flight to be approved, it shows that it is diligently done. It must be essential, COVID-19 related or other essential flights like cargo that will bring in medicines or equipment or other things related to COVID-19 or our whole well-being like food.