Ghana’s president to travel to Dubai on March 8, 2022
Emirates Airline places travel restrictions on 8 African states
African countries must reciprocate travel ban in good measure
North Tongu MP Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has urged Ghana’s president to cancel his planned trip to the UAE in protest of Emirates Airline placing travel restrictions in 8 African countries including Ghana.
“I should hope President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana would also in protest reconsider his plans to lead a Ghanaian delegation to the Dubai Expo on March 8, 2022,” he said
Reacting to the travel ban on Twitter on December 28, 2021, the MP (Member of Parliament) said leaders of African countries must without delay denounce the ban and asked for an immediate reversal of the ban.
He added that Africans must also consider appropriate retaliation to the ban and urged them to cease participation in the ongoing Dubai Expo which closes on March 31, 2022
“I urge African Presidents and the African Union to immediately denounce this shameless discriminatory policy and to proceed by giving UAE authorities an ultimatum to reverse this backward ban, failing which I strongly expect African countries to reciprocate in good measure, and in addition withdraw en masse from the ongoing Dubai Expo which closes on March 31, 2022.
“African nations cannot continue to be soft targets in these dark schemes that perpetuate high-level international racism.” He further stated
He said the countries banned from traveling to or through Dubai do not have an active case count and hospitalization anywhere near that of France, UK, Italy, USA and India whose citizens were still allowed to travel to and transit through Dubai.
“The other nauseating irony is that daily active cases in the UAE have now crossed 1,800, far higher than Ghana’s 1,264 new cases, and yet UAE citizens can travel to Ghana whereas Ghanaians cannot travel to the UAE,” he added.
He urged all countries to adhere to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation that countries should avoid travel bans because they were not effective in fighting pandemics but should rather work together to find solutions.
“All countries should listen to the WHO which has long warned that travel bans do not work and that they are indeed counterproductive. Global challenges demand global solutions, not blinded discriminatory knee jerk reactions”, he said
Emirates Airline announced on December 28, 2021, that eight African countries ‘will not be accepted to travel to or through Dubai’ until further notice due to the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
The remaining seven countries are Angola, Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Ethiopia.