The Federal Government has reached an agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that will allow Nigerian passport holders to get visas for travel to that Arab nation beginning today, July 15, 2024.
Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information, said this on Monday when briefing State House media following the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.
The declaration comes more than two years after the UAE banned visa issuance to Nigerians following a long-running diplomatic dispute with Africa’s most populous country.
It also comes almost two months after UAE national carrier Emirates Airlines announced the return of flights to Nigeria. The airline said in May that daily Lagos-Dubai flights would resume on October 1, 2024.
Emirates Airlines suspended its Dubai-Lagos flights in 2022 over its inability to repatriate trapped funds in Nigeria in the heat of the diplomatic fireworks between the two countries.
Nigeria and the UAE have a long history of restriction of flights between both countries based on certain unresolved issues surrounding the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA). Visa restrictions later surfaced as diplomatic fireworks continued between Nigeria and the UAE, which is a top destination for Nigerian migrants and tourists.
In September 2023, President Bola Tinubu met with UAE President, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi, to smoothen the rough edges in the diplomatic relations between the two countries.