Local: Minister of foreign affairs explains the reason why Canada denied landing rights to Air Peace

Minister of foreign affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, clarified why the attempt to evacuate Nigerians from Canada had been postponed.

Air Peace flight was expected to evacuate 200 Nigerians from Canada on Thursday, but the airline confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that the flight had been cancelled.

The management of Air Peace wishes to announce that its evacuation flight to Canada previously scheduled for May 14, 2020, has been postponed due to logistics issues as communicated to the airline by the Nigerian High Commission in Canada, the statement by Air Peace read.

Once the issues are resolved with the Canadian authorities and a new date is issued by the High Commission, we shall duly communicate same to the public.

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Clarifying the postponement of the flight on Thursday, Onyeama, said the airline was denied landing rights by the Canadian authorities.

In fact, this is the case that the Canadian government refused landing rights on the ground that this particular Nigerian airline did not have a license to make commercial flights to that country and was not licensed to that country for commercial flights, "he said.

Our high commissioner in Canada is negotiating with the Canadian government on this issue, and we hope that the decision will be overturned.

The argument he makes, which is a strong argument, is that this is not a normal commercial flight to Canada to carry passengers, but that this is an emergency flight and that there is a distinction between the two. The talks are still continuing and we are optimistic that there will be a successful result.