The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, says State governors not exempted from the lockdown, no-flight orders as the ministry has denied flight requests of several governors, since the closure of the airports and the lockdown order by President Muhammadu Buhari as a result of coronavirus.

He disclosed this on Tuesday during the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

The minister noted that governors were not exempted from the lockdown and no-flight orders, adding that 98% of any ongoing flights, are either essential flights relating to the COVID-19, or repatriation requests.

“There is no exception to governors. I had denied several of such flights, including two governors from south-south and two from the south east and by the way, three of them are members of the APC and I think one is from north-central”.

“Once you see a flight approved, it is diligently done and it must be essential, COVID-19-related or some other flights like essential cargo that would bring in medicines or equipment or something related to our well being like food,” Sirika added.

“Every single flight that you would see, every single flight that we would approve would be an essential flight and 98% of them would be connected to COVID-19,” he said.

“A few others, maybe 1% might be either a repatriation request from a diplomatic community which must go through foreign affairs or it might be repatriation due to illness of another kind. And those repatriations will also need the stamp of a teaching hospital”.