The United Arab Emirates has contradicted claims by the Nigerian government that it is to lift a year-long visa ban on Nigerian travelers. <\/p>\n
The source asked not to be named because\u00a0he is\u00a0not authorized to speak to the media. <\/p>\n
The UAE said in a notice last October it will no longer issue visas to citizens from Nigeria and 19 other African nations. It did not provide further details. Obtaining a 30-day tourist visa was relatively easy until the UAE abruptly stopped issuing the visas to Nigerian nationals. <\/p>\n
Flights between both countries were stopped last year after Dubai\u2019s Emirates airline suspended its operations in\u00a0Nigeria\u00a0citing trapped revenues. <\/p>\n
The carrier said it could not access and repatriate its funds amounting to $85 million withheld in Nigeria. <\/p>\n
Earlier this week,\u00a0Nigeria\u2019s President Bola Tinubu met with UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi where both men \u201cfinalized a historic agreement,\u201d according to a statement released by the Nigerian government. <\/p>\n
The government said in the statement that the agreement paved the way for the lifting of the visa ban, including the immediate resumption of flights between both countries. <\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, by this historic agreement, both Etihad Airlines and Emirates Airlines are to immediately resume flight schedules into and out of\u00a0Nigeria, without any further delay,\u201d a statement by\u00a0Nigeria\u2019s presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale said. <\/p>\n
However, a statement by the UAE government later Monday said both leaders had during the meeting, \u201cexplored opportunities for further bilateral collaboration\u201d with the hope of \u201creinforcing ties between the UAE and\u00a0Nigeria,\u201d but did not mention lifting the visa ban or flights restarting. <\/p>\n
In a follow-up statement, Nigerian government spokesman Ngelale said officials from both countries needed more time to finalize agreement details, contradicting his earlier statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the agreement struck between the two Heads of State, there is need to allow cabinet officials from both sides to work out the finer details and finalize the cross-sectoral agreements,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cEveryone can now allow the process to work itself out organically, devoid of speculation.\u201d <\/p>\n
There was much jubilation from excited Nigerians when it was announced that the visa ban was lifted. <\/p>\n
Dubai is a popular destination for thousands of Nigerian tourists. It is also a haven for real-estate investors from the country.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Before the pandemic, Nigerians ranked among Dubai\u2019s largest foreign\u00a0real-estate investors, with investments valued at nearly $2 billion, according to local media reports citing the Dubai Land\u00a0Department.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Before the ban,\u00a0Emirates Airlines operated two daily flights from Lagos,\u00a0Nigeria, to Dubai, and one daily flight from the capital Abuja\u00a0to Dubai. <\/p>\n\n
The United Arab Emirates has contradicted claims by the Nigerian government that it is to lift a year-long visa ban on Nigerian travelers. The source asked not to be named because\u00a0he is\u00a0not authorized to speak to the media. The UAE said in a notice last October it will no longer issue visas to citizens from <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}