Lagos State Governor, Bababjide Sanwo-Olu has lent his voice for the reopening of domestic flight operations in the country especially the Lagos-Abuja route.
Sanwo-Olu’s call followed a similar entreaty made by the Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, to President Muhammadu Buhari for the lifting of the ban on domestic flights.
According to punchng.com, Mr Sanwo-Olu said the state government is trying to get the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to allow flights from Lagos to Abuja to operate, following the increasing impact of the closure of the airports on the state’s economy.
The governor lamented that the aviation industry, as well as the entertainment, hospitality and transportation sectors, had been “significantly” affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Federal Government on March 23 shut all international airports in the country before it later extended the closure to all airports in the country, banning all local and international flights.
Sanwo-Olu spoke as a panellist at a webinar hosted by FSDH Merchant Bank on Friday. The webinar, titled, ‘A global pandemic: local realities and peculiarities – a view from the frontlines’, was anchored by the Chairman, FSDH Holding Company, Mr Hakeem Belo-Osagie, and the bank’s Managing Director, Mrs Hamda Ambah.
Other panellists included the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai; his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki; Senior lecturer and consultant, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Dr Alero Ann Roberts; Director, Centre for International Development, Harvard University, Prof Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School, Dr Jaya Wen.
The governor said, “In terms of direct economy, I know that the entertainment industry has been affected badly. I know the hospitality industry has been affected greatly, especially as people could not go out. It affected those sectors badly.
Transportation business and the aviation sector have been affected significantly and these are large employers of labour. We all know that Nollywood employs many people, so we are thinking through how to reset these economies very quickly but in a very gradual manner.
“So, the aviation industry has been badly hit and just this (Friday) morning, I spoke with a major player in that industry and we are trying to get the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to see whether we are going to resume Lagos–Abuja flights before we get to other sectors. There has to be some gradual process in lifting the lockdown.
“We will continue to have engagements with all of the players down the value chain. At the right time when we see that the T’s have been crossed and the I’s have been dotted, we will do that and you can hold us to that.”
Similarly, Cross River State Governor Prof. Ayade had argued that the continual closure of Nigeria’s domestic airspace was impacting negatively on the aviation, hospitality and tourism sectors of the economy, warning that the adverse effects of another four weeks closure of the airspace could be catastrophic.
According to atqnews.com, Ayade said: “the suspension of domestic flights has affected most hotels leading to their closure. It is so bad that most hotels including the 5-star hotels are shutting down because they cannot is even sustain the cost of diesel for their generating sets and as that happens, they start laying off workers. So you have a lot of workers, young people who used to work in the hotels and tourism industry out of jobs. And the big question is, how long can this continue?”
He said the closure of the country’s domestic airspace was also having negative spiral effect on small businesses and service providers, thus further worsening the economic situation of that category of Nigerians.
“The caterers who supply food to the hotels are all out of business. All the suppliers are out of business. So as we continue to lock the domestic airports for another four weeks, what we are going to have in terms of economic loss, what we are going to have in terms of social delinquency, the associated moral and social tension that will come with it will be just too huge for the country to bear”, he quipped.
The Cross River state number one citizen said rather than ban domestic flights, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC ) should devise strict guidelines to enable the airlines sector to continue to operate without escalating the number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
“We can still be safe while allowing the internals of Nigeria to run. We can do so by allowing the domestic airlines to start flying.
As they fly, NCDC should spell out certain conditions like making sure aircrafts are properly disinfected, ensuring temperature tests are carried out before passengers get on board and of course, ensuring that all passengers wear proper masks. The airlines can have their own masks that they can give to passengers.”
