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By Amos Okioma, Yenagoa
The flurry of travel restrictions being clamped on African countries including Nigeria by Western nations is capable of undermining global effort against Covid-19, says the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity).
The group, which condemned the recent travel restrictions announced by the Canadian and United Kingdom authorities, averred that the actions taken against African countries are “neither informed by science nor justified by sound clinical and epidemiological principles.”
The NAS capoon, Mr Abiola Owoaje, in a statement titled:’Covid-19 Omicron: The gang-up against Africa,’ declared the actions were racially motivated.
“Available records from the WHO indicate that the Omicron variant has been identified in over 40 countries across the world with no associated death so far. Many of these countries including Greece, Finland, France, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Romania among others are in Europe, yet the UK did not extend travel restrictions on them but rather choose to clamp a ban on travelers from Nigeria after a disdainful one-hour notice.
“The UK authorities did not stop there, but proceeded to announce that it was withholding decisions on visitor Visa applications from all the countries on the ‘red list.’ The implication of the UK’s actions is grave. They are clearly unfair and unjustified, and leave very little room to doubt the growing conviction that they are racially motivated,” he said
According to Owoaje listening to the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, who disclosed that the Omicron variant had existed in Europe before the red flag on it was raised by African countries, and the commendation of African countries by WHO for their “speed and transparency” in informing the world of the new variant, it is disheartening to see how African countries are being discriminated against in the West.
The statement read in part: “The misguided hysteria being displayed by Western nations against African countries since the outbreak of the Omicron variant inadvertently clouds their sincerity in the global coalition against Covid-19. It gives them away as colluders in the worsening scenario of vaccine inequality threatening global action against the pandemic.
“Vaccines are allowed to go to waste in Europe and other advanced countries where they have been over supplied, while African countries are supplied meagre quantities even after placing orders and showing genuine payment commitment. Enacting policies that shuts Africa from the rest of the world, not accepting tests from African countries demonstrates nothing but stereotyping and racism.
“These discriminatory regulations, shocking in their total disregard of the rules of international engagement, are likely to undermine the genuine world-wide collaboration that is required to contain this pandemic as well as the trust that is needed to maintain public health alliances for the protection of our world in the future.
“It is urgently necessary for western governments to work hard to drain the reservoirs of ignorance and prejudice that these ill-judged actions stem from if the genuine progress made in international collaboration against Covid-19 is not to be jeopardized.”
