WHEN Nigerians thought the back and forth relationship between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was about to become history after President Bola Tinubu led his team to Dubai to discuss with the leadership of the Arab country, the body language of the UAE authorities has only shown that the Nigerian government is on its own.
With the latest exemption of Nigeria from the list of countries allowed access to five-year tourist visa by the UAE, despite the genuine efforts made by President Tinubu to resolve the crisis, many key players in the country’s aviation sector have expressed their displeasure at the failure of the UAE to recognise the sincerity of Nigeria.
Key stakeholders in the industry have reacted to the unending strict policies towards Nigeria.
FG must not force UAE to accept Nigeria— NANTA President
Reacting to the UAE latest action, president of National Association of Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA), Mrs Susan Akporiaye, who interpreted the action of the UAE authorities to mean that they no longer wanted to do business with Nigeria, urged the Federal Government to apply the law of reciprocity against the UAE.
According to Akporiaye, the insistence of Nigeria to keep the existing relationship between the two countries at all cost has continued to be a source of embarrassment to all Nigerians.
According to her, “Honestly, this UAE issue with Nigeria sincerely is a simple matter. What exactly is the reason why we want the relationship at all cost? What are the investment opportunities that abound there (UAE) that we need? Can’t it be got from another country? It is a simple issue, if you want to go to somebody’s house and the person says don’t come to my house, you want to relate and be friends and do business with somebody and the person is saying I’m not interested in doing business with you, it is simple. Let us just mind our business, we cannot force somebody to accept us if not, they will be giving us some derogatory conditions. For me, have we not survived? Have we died since these two years that we have not been able to enter UAE? Life is still ongoing, my members have not died, their businesses are ongoing, we just moved to another direction, we look for another country that is more open and welcoming. Look at Morocco, look at what is happening now, we have moved Morocco up to the extent of business and traffic. We are giving to Morocco and they are now coming to set up tourism authority in Nigeria. So let’s go to the people that are willing to accept us, I don’t think it’s by force to do business with a particular country that does not want you.
To me, we should open our eyes and recognise the warning sign. UAE is not the only country in the world, whatever we are looking for in the UAE, I believe we can get it from other countries. What we need to do is to make our findings. Speaking from the government perspective, whatever is the reason our government needs relationship with the UAE. I am sure there are other places they can get it and the law of reciprocity should come in, if they are refusing to give us visa, we too should not give them visa.”
UAE is playing more of politics than aero politics —Comrade Abioye
In his reaction to the face-off, a renowned labour leader who is presently the general secretary of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), Comrade Olayinka Abioye, attributed the rigid position of the UAE authorities to politics, despite the efforts put in by Nigeria to resolve the issue.
According to the labour leader, “As a keen watcher of political events, I suspect very much so that what is happening between these two countries are more political than bilateral or foreign affairs relationships. It has been proved beyond reasonable doubts that the current administration has made overtures to the Emiratis, which ordinarily ought to have been reciprocated. The first time Mr President travelled officially to engage with them, you will recall that there was wild jubilation across the country when the removal of embargo on issuance of visa was proclaimed, only for it to turn to be a fake news. This has happened twice and the question now is what exactly is the issue or challenge between us? If it is about aero economics, UAE stands to gain and benefit more than Nigeria in terms of the volume of air traffic it enjoys here than us. So, what is the problem? I want to believe that it is more of political reasons than aero politics. Who loses more on this chess game is the Emiratis, given the humongous sum of money it makes annually from here and from our people who travels there on a daily basis.”
UAE’s action is a deliberate ploy against Nigeria —Kyari
In his contribution, an experienced aircraft engineer, Mr Sheri Kyari, described the behaviour of the United Arab Emirates as a deliberate ploy to ensure Nigerians do not have access to their country, either because of their inability to repatriate the airline’s ticket sales or they have had enough of Nigerians and other African countries.
His words: “Nigeria should continue to press further diplomatically and, who knows, it may yield a good result at the end of the day. Meanwhile, Nigerians have invested heavily in that country. It is a big lesson for thieves from Nigeria.”
UAE has shown they don’t need Nigeria —Ohunayo
A member of the industry professional group, Aviation Round Table and director, Zenith Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, said, looking at the profitable end of year result the airline recorded, the UAE must have concluded that they can do without Nigeria,
“Emirates has proven the wrong myth that we had here that Nigeria was the most profitable route for them. if you notice their end-of-year result, they had more profitable result than when they were operating into Nigeria; so it shows they could do without Nigeria and still make their profit but, unfortunately, in order to stop other people from eating their pie, they have imposed the visa ban on Nigeria, so Nigerian airlines like Air Peace cannot really operate since they have nobody to carry and that has been the logjam. Mr President has gone there and, of recent, they (UAE) gave some waivers to some countries and Nigeria was not there. We need to know those things that angered them and ask if they have been addressed, Have we accepted that our citizens that have been of bad character there be returned home and if we are ready to participate in the repatriation of those citizens? Have we also given the guarantee that in moving forward, we would accept to support the prosecution of any Nigerian found wanting by their rules? These are some of the things we need to address. I can tell you that for Nigerians that have invested in UAE, they are going into UAE even with the ban. If it’s just the ordinary travellers that are not having this visa, for those who have invested, they are entering Dubai, so it’s not a general ban on Nigeria but on the majority. So we need to address their genuine fears, like those youths who went there started cultism and continued to mess up their rules, we need to address this with them and see how we can curb them and we must continue to engage them.”
Conclusion
Obviously, it is generally believed that the misdemeanor of some Nigerians, who failed to recognise the fact that each country has its own rules that guide how things are done, may equally aggravate the policy rigidity of the UAE authorities.
There is no way the UAE government will fold its hands and watch citizens of other countries come turn what they have laboured for upside down on the altar of cultism and other vices, ranging from drug trafficking, scams and similar vices.
To many of the key players, the Federal Government should ignore the UAE government and make friends with more friendly countries, rather than making a country that is unwilling to accommodate Nigeria and its citizens a tin god.
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