The Federal Government has urged Britain to rescind its ban on travelers from Nigeria in view of the cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 in the country.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave the urge in Abuja, on Monday, at a media briefing in reaction to the decision by Britain.
The Minister described the decision to put Nigeria on the red list, as a result of less than two dozen cases of Omicron as, “unjust, unfair, punitive, indefensible and discriminatory”
He said the decision was also not driven by science and should be rescinded immediately, adding, “How do you slam this kind of discriminatory action on a country of 200 million people just because of less than two dozen cases?
“Whereas British citizens and residents are allowed to come in from Nigeria, non-residents from the same country are banned. The two groups are coming from the same country, but being subjected to different conditions.
“Why won’t Britain allow people in both categories to come in, and be subjected to the same conditions of testing and quarantine?
“This is why this decision to ban travellers from Nigeria, who are neither citizens nor residents, is grossly discriminatory and punitive.”
He added that the travel ban, also being slammed on some African countries, is “a knee-jerk reaction that could only be detrimental to our quest to most conclusively tackle this pandemic.
“Many developed countries have used the advantage of their enormous resources or relationship to sign agreements with manufacturers to supply their countries with vaccines ahead of making them available for use by other countries.
“Even before the clinical trials were completed, millions of doses of the most promising vaccines have been bought by Britain, US, Japan and the EU.
“Some of these countries bought doses five times the size of their population, while others, mostly in Africa, have little or no access to vaccines.
“This is the real issue to address instead of choosing the easy path of travel bans, which the UN Secretary-General called Travel Apartheid. Let the world know that no one is safe until everyone is safe.”
