Ahead of Saturday’s planned resumption of international flights, the Federal Government on Monday said that passengers who fail to comply with the COVID-19 protocol put in place to curb the spread of the virus will be suspended from travelling for six months.
The nation’s airspace was shut to flight operations in March to curb the spread of the disease and the airspace has since been re-opened for domestic flights from July 8.
The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu, said, “There will definitely be sanctions if they do not comply. Sanctions to the airlines if they allow passengers without a COVID-19 Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) result to board, they will be sanctioned on arrival in Nigeria. That is the airline. For passengers that decline to do the test, at Day seven, we will still allow them after Day 14 to have a test done after which their details will be forwarded to Port Health, Immigration, and part of the security services.
“It is very likely we will put in place measures to enforce this by suspending travel up to six months or deny foreign travels altogether. But beyond the sanctions, because as responsible citizens, we all want our country to continue to be COVID-19-free once we get on top of the pandemic, so, we expect the vast number of travellers to continue to comply with these simple, straightforward measures we are putting in place for the benefit of our country and for the health of our citizens,” Aliyu said.
He also warned that airlines that fail to comply with the COVID-19 protocol for the resumption of international flights would pay a fine of $3,500 per passenger.
He assured that the PTF has been working with various agencies to develop protocols that will safeguard the well-being of international travel and prevent the importation of new infections as well as prevent the further spread of COVID-19.
He said, “So, for pre-departure, we need three things: One, we need a negative COVID-19 PCR test, this needs to be done from a certified laboratory and accredited laboratory within the country you are leaving, it should not be a fake result because we will develop this seems that will allow us to identify results that are fraudulent.
“And it needs to be done preferably as close as possible to the time of boarding that is within 72 hours of departure, but we will still accept tests that are valid within seven days simply because of the difficulty logistically of making sure that everybody has a 72-hour window for the test in some countries.
“The second thing is you need to register on Nigeria international travel portal which we are developing. We hope it will go life by the middle of this week. We’re not activating it yet but a lot of work has gone through it.
“So, you register on the payment portal and you will pay to have a PCR test done in-country at day seven of arrival and you will print out confirmation. There will be an email confirmation that will go to the passenger and there will also be some sort of bar code that will help us identify those that have paid for the test.”
