…US Next Monday
The Federal government has said it will begin the airlifting of about 4,000 Nigerian nationals from UAE, UK, US and other countries who are eager to return home this week.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, gave the figure on Monday at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
Onyeama, who said the country currently lacked the capacity to accommodate those willing to return, asked them to exercise more patience just as he raised the alarm that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control was already overstretched.
He said the first set of evacuees from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, expected in the country on Monday would now be airlifted on Wednesday.
He said: “There are about 4000 Nigerians wishing to come back home. If we had our way, we will bring them all back immediately, all at once.
“But there are various constraints and the biggest constraint is where to isolate them, the beds. We have done everything we can to get beds here in Abuja and in Lagos.
“So, the first flight that we hope by God’s grace on Wednesday, Emirate will be in Lagos. Then, we are hoping that soon after that, a British Airways flight which is actually coming to Nigeria on Friday to evacuate some British nationals here in Nigeria since it is coming empty, we have negotiated with the British government for us to fill their plane in London with Nigerians coming back and again, we would like to express our profound gratitude to the United Kingdom High Commission here in Abuja for really supporting us and making this possible.
“So, we are hoping that on Friday, we will be able to evacuate from the UK, anything up to 300 Nigerians from the United Kingdom.
“Ideally, we would have liked that flight to be coming to Abuja because we have been able to secure more hotel rooms in Abuja than we have in Lagos, almost 1,000 in Abuja but they let us know that unfortunately right now, it can’t come to Abuja, it is only Lagos” Onyema said.
