Fakoyejo OlalekanThe governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has also made an allegation against foreign aviation authorities, stating that they are harassing Nigerian airlines by unnecessarily using sniffer dogs on them.
Prime Business Africa had previously reported that the Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, revealed that officials of the company were harassed by UK authorities.
Onyema disclosed that the UK authority used dogs to frighten their officials and prevented them from conducting proper maintenance checks before take-off.
The Air Peace boss said the airline’s officials were mistreated because the company chose not to inflate its ticket price for UK trips after the foreign airlines hiked theirs.
In a meeting with members of the House of Representatives, Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, international and domestic airlines, Emefiele cautioned foreign countries against using sniffing dogs to harass Nigerian-owned airlines.
He said Nigerian airlines should be allowed to conduct their foreign trips, “When you allow Nigerian airlines to fly in your country, what the airlines will do is charge naira as we expect foreign airlines to charge.
“You cannot be flying 21 flights into Nigeria and you do not allow Nigerian airlines to land in your country and when they land, you intimidate them with sniffer dogs and do not allow them to carry out maintenance checks.”
Meanwhile, Emefiele disclosed that by October 31, $120 million will be released to the foreign airlines to enable them settle their repatriation funds issue.
Recall that after protest in August, with threat by foreign airlines not to operate flights into or out of Nigeria over their trapped ticket revenue in the country, the CBN had released $265 million in the same month.
“Everyone is calling on CBN to release blocked funds, and I am doing everything I can to provide dollars for you to repatriate your money,” the CBN governor said, adding that, “We used our discretion to allocate $265 million to the foreign airlines, broken down into spot and forward. We did $110 million on the spot and the rest in 60 days forward.
“On that day, we allocated to IATA $32 million through UBA. Qatar Airways, $22.8 million through Standard Chartered; Emirates, $19.6 million through Access Bank; British Airway, $5.5 million through GTB; Virgin Atlantic, $4.8 million through Zenith and others.
“How then can they go about and begin to say that they have not received money? This is an extra allocation. This is something I have told you (foreign airlines) that we will continue to do so that you will not blackmail the country. $120 million will be due on the 31 of October.” Emefiele said.
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