Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to lift the ban on domestic flights.
He made the appeal on Sunday while inspecting asphalting of the dualized Odukpani-Calabar highway.
The Nigerian government, last week, extended the ban on local and international flights by four weeks.
The chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 explained that the decision followed experts’ advice.
But Ayade lamented that the continued closure of domestic airspace was impacting negatively on Nigeria’s aviation, hospitality and tourism sectors.
“The suspension of domestic flights has affected most hotels leading to their closure. It is so bad that most hotels, including the 5-star hotels, are shutting down because they cannot sustain the cost of diesel for their generating sets and as that happens, they start laying off workers.
“So you have a lot of workers, young people who used to work in the hotels and tourism industry out of jobs. And the big question is, how long can this continue? The caterers who supply food to the hotels are all out of business. All the suppliers are out of business.
“We continue to lock the domestic airports for another four weeks, what are we going to have in terms of economic loss and in terms of social delinquency? The associated moral and social tension that will come with it will be just too huge for the country to bear,” Ayade warns.
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