The chairman of Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema, said his involvement in the evacuation of Nigerians from strife-ridden Sudan was borne out of the understanding that everything should not be left for the government.
He disclosed this in a statement issued by the spokesman for the airline, Mr. Stanley Olisa in Lagos on Thursday.
According to Olisa, the carrier deployed one of its wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft marked 5N-BVE, to operate the evacuation flight which arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, around 23:00hrs on Wednesday, May 4, 2023.
Onyema, according to the statement had offered to freely airlift Nigerians from the Northeast African country requesting the federal government to get them to a neighbouring country, as the Sudanese airspace had been closed for civil aviation.
“I am compelled to help because Nigeria cannot afford to lose her citizens in that country. It would be my own commitment to making sure that the stranded Nigerians in the war-torn country are safe.
“Everything must not be left for the government alone, especially as the situation calls for urgency and immediate action,” he said.
In an interview on Arise News yesterday (Wednesday) the airline chief said the country experienced some challenges in airlifting Nigerians evacuated from Sudan.
He said his aircraft flew into Egypt on Tuesday, but could not access the evacuees until Wednesday, adding that his crew had to sleep at the airport until Egypt was set to grant leave to the evacuees.
Onyema disclosed that even after the two aircraft belonging to Air Peace and that of the Nigeria Air Force boarded to full capacity, the airport authority denied them take off on the grounds that no evacuee should be left behind in Egypt.
To deal with the situation, Onyema said he promptly suggested that the luggage in the NAF aircraft should be transferred into Air Peace to enable the NAF take the remaining passengers.
“What happened was a fall out from the confusion caused by the Egyptians.
“I don’t blame the Egyptians also; they need to protect their country from infiltration, they have to be sure of the people that come into their country,” Onyema said.
Nevertheless, he contended that Nigerians living in foreign are overly stigmatised by their host even without any evidence of crime established against them.
“Nigerians are overly stigmatised, they don’t want to know the number of Nigerians in foreign jails for something they know nothing about.
“All you need to be condemned is to carry that green passport; all you need to become a villain is to be identified as a Nigerian, you are a suspect even before you are judged, so this is the problem we are having.
“You can imagine Ethiopia, they were to go through Ethiopia, Ethiopia blocked them, Ethiopia is making a lot of money out of Nigeria,” he said.
The Air Peace boss however described Nigerians as very good people.
“When we come back here we remember we are Yorubas, we are Hausas, we are Fulani, we are Ijaws, we are Ibibios and all that kind of things. We stereotype ourselves too.
“Nobody can love you more than yourself.
“This is the reason I do some of these things, not because I have money. I am not richer than anybody, but I love this country; I want this nation to be one because I believe in this nation, I believe that this country can be greater than it is.
“I believe that the over 378 ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria should be a source of strength to this country and not an albatross or a cause of a kind.
“If only we can get our act together and allow this diversity to become our source of strength no country under the sun can be greater than this nation.
“This is my motivation for doing this kind of thing,” he added.
This is not the first time Air Peace has magnanimously deployed its aircraft for humanitarian purposes.
Recall that in 2019, the airline freely airlifted 503 stranded Nigerians amidst the xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
During the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, the airline also released some of its aircraft for the repatriation of Nigerians from several countries.
It was also involved in airlifting Nigerians at the start of the Ukraine-Russia crisis in 2022.
