At zero, zero hours today, Nigeria effected the new travel rules for inbound passengers from the United Kingdom and South Africa as directed by the Presidential Task Force, PTF on Covid-19.
The action according to the PTF is to protect Nigerians from being infected by the new strain of the virus discovered in these two countries.
National Coordinator PTF, Dr. Sani Aliu while unfolding the new rules during the PTF briefing in Abuja at the weekend said, henceforth all passengers coming into the country from the UK and South Africa on direct flight must use the Nigeria International travel portal to register, fill in their health questionnaires, they must upload a negative Covid-19 PCR test results with a validity of not more than five days.
He added that, when leaving the UK or South Africa, passengers must have two documents to be presented to the airlines, the first document is a negative Covid-19 PCR test result, while the second document is a permit to travel which would be used to as QR code.
“For passengers leaving from the UK and South Africa on direct flights, they have to present a permit to travel to airlines in order to board. The only way you can get a permit to travel on the travel portal is by filling your health questionnaires electronically, uploading your covid-19 PCR result and paying for your day seven test, if you do not present a permit to travel or you cannot present a permit to travel, the airlines are being directed not to board”.
Dr. Aliu emphasized, “if you are coming from the UK and South Africa it is in your best interest before Monday 28 December, 2020, to familiarize yourself with the Nigeria International travel portal and make sure you fill in your details, you submit or upload your covid PCR results that has to be negative and you pay for a day 7 test on arrival in Nigeria”.
“The second enforcement we would have has to do with the issue of the 7 day self isolation after you arrive, we have had a lot of debates whether we should institute mandatory quarantine or not when people arrive, we have decided for the moment that we will open a special register at the airport for all passengers arriving from these two countries and we would have an enhanced surveillance where these passengers would be contacted after they have arrived home, we would be checking on them to see if they are having any symptoms but even more importantly by day 7 we expect these passengers just like any other passengers coming from outside to unfailingly go for your covid PCR test result that must have been paid before boarding your aircraft”.
Dr. Aliu stressed that failure to meet these requirements would lead to passengers being denied boarding and refusing to go for Covid testing 7 days on arrival and on the 10th, the names of the passengers would also automatically go to the suspension lists of passports for 6 months.
“Right from September when we opened the airspace that there will be penalties for not abiding by the International protocols, Mr. President has approved at our meeting on Tuesday, from now on, particularly and specifically for those coming from the UK and South Africa, we will pay special attention to these flights, if you do not do your day 7 test by day 10, you will automatically go on the suspension list and your travel documents, your passport will be suspended for a minimum period of 6 months, if you carry a foreign passport with a visa, we will revoke your visa and because we are able to track, it is easier to track a smaller group of persons than a large group of persons which had always been the challenge we have and we are now able to enforce this specifically for passengers coming from these routes until further notice”.
The PTF Coordinator also disclosed that the lists of 100 defaulters in the past would be published this week, adding that only the passport numbers would be published not their names.
“We have already contacted these passengers and we have confirmed that they have not had covid PCR tests but we will not be publishing names but we will be publishing their passport numbers”.
“We are asking from now on, people that are travelling to make sure that they abide by our protocols because there would be repercussions if you don’t in terms of penalties”, he added.
For those who present fake covid test results, he warned, “we would also institute the same penalties for people presenting fake Covid-19 PCR results at our airports when exiting or if they have found to have presented fake covid-19 PCR test results on arrival. Those that are existing, we have a code that we have developed that we would be asking airlines to start using which would entail entering the code for every results, a special code onto our website that will tell you whether or not the result is fake, so please do not buy fake results and do not use fake results, you are putting others at risk if you do so”.
“This might be inconvenient to the general public but it is still better than locking down and its an option because it is a decision either we lockdown or we start restricting”.
