Omicron: PDP Chieftain Lauds FG for Placing UK, Canada, Saudi-Arabia on Red list

Sylvester Idowu in Warri

A Chieftain of Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and former Delta State Gubernatorial Aspirant, Mr. Sunny Onuesoke, has commended Nigeria government’s retaliatory measures that placed The United Kingdom, Canada and Saudi-Arabia on COVID-19 Omicron red list and banned flights from those countries.

The Nigerian government had stated that it would place the United Kingdom, Canada and Saudi Arabia on a red list over the outbreak and spread of Omicron, a variant of the COVID-19.

The President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration said that it would also stop their airlines from coming into Nigeria in retaliation for the three nations banning travels from Nigeria over the new COVID-19 variant.

Onuesoke said that the retaliatory measures so far were appropriate in this instance because Nigeria is still a sovereign nation that must not be toyed or played around with.

“The point I find very interesting and satisfying is that Nigeria has taken a retaliatory action. They don’t want Nigerians and Nigerian airlines in their countries, yet they fly theirs in and out. This sort of one sided and insult used to be the order of the day before and Nigerian government just went along. It must be tit for tat for those countries to take you serious in future,” he said.

The PDP chieftain wondered why the United Kingdom would ban Nigeria because of six or seven persons that tasted positive to Omicron viruses in Nigeria, while the United Kingdom is a reservoir of that viruses.

“I don’t want to talk about Canada because that country is outside the usual radar of Nigeria. Nigeria merely relates to Canada via the Commonwealth of Nations. Nigeria knows the relevant and important country on the North American Continent and in the Americas generally; and definitely not Canada.

“That of Saudi Arabia against Nigeria is something abominable and unconscionable. If the Nigerian Muslim Ummah would accept that nonsense from Saudi Arabia then good luck to them. If not for the hajj, who would even look in the direction of Saudi Arabia?” Onuesoke stated, stressing that it would have been better Nigeria government announced the ban outright instead of giving notice.

He enjoined the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika, to keep up the good work and urged Nigerians to bear the pain of the hard-line measures.

“The action of the federal government is fair to me because what is good for the goose is equally good for the ganden. Western nations treat Black Africans as if we are still in the times of slavery,” he noted.