The UAE disagrees with Nigeria’s announcement about ending the one-year visa ban. An official from the UAE told CNN, “There haven’t been any updates on Nigeria/UAE travel rules yet.” The person preferred not to share their name, as they aren’t allowed to talk to the press.
Last October, the UAE stopped giving visas to people from Nigeria and 19 other African countries without explaining why. Getting a 30-day tourist visa used to be easy for Nigerians until the UAE suddenly stopped it.
Flights between the two countries also stopped last year after Dubai’s Emirates airline paused its operations in Nigeria. They said they couldn’t get back their $85 million stuck in Nigeria.
Dubai, in the UAE, has been a favorite place for Nigerians to visit for a long time.
Recently, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu met with UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. They agreed on something important, according to a statement from the Nigerian government. They said it would lead to the visa ban being lifted and flights starting again right away.
But the UAE government later said that during the meeting, the leaders talked about working together more but didn’t mention anything about the visa ban or flights.
Later, a spokesperson from the Nigerian government said that officials from both countries needed more time to figure out the details of the agreement. This contradicted what he said earlier.
So, people are waiting to see how things will work out.
Many Nigerians were really happy when they heard that the visa ban was lifted. Dubai is a favorite place for thousands of Nigerian tourists. It’s also a popular choice for Nigerian real estate investors. Before the pandemic, Nigerians were some of the biggest foreign real estate investors in Dubai, putting in almost $2 billion. Before the ban, Emirates Airlines used to have two flights a day from Lagos, Nigeria to Dubai, and one flight a day from the capital, Abuja, to Dubai.
SOURCE:CNN