FG Set To Ease Decongestion At Airport

By Aghanenu Miracle
The Federal Government has stated that air passengers intending to come into Nigeria, will not be allowed to board aircraft without a Quick Response (QR) code attesting that they are COVID-19 free, with the introduction of a new online procedure.

This was disclosed during a press briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, the National Coordinator of the task force, Dr. Sani Aliyu, said the step has become necessary to ease congestion on arrival at airports and to avoid the spread of the virus.

Considering the fact that over 4000 passengers arrive daily at the Lagos and Abuja airport, Aliyu noted that the use of papers will not be sustainable.

He added that the online procedure would make it easier to manage passengers, sequencial to the increase in the number of passengers that could fly into the country.

In his words, “We have already increased the number of passengers that could fly into Lagos to 2,500 per day, while that of Abuja has been increased to 1,600 per day. We cannot continue to handle paperwork with this number of passengers coming into Nigeria.”

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He pointed out emphatically that this online procedure which involves producing a QR certificate before passengers proceed to the airport would also reduce the stress that passengers go through on arrival at the airport terminals.

Furthermore, he said, “The portal has three sections. The first section has to do with filling a straightforward questionnaire. The second step is to upload the COVID-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) result that should be negative at the point of boarding. At this stage, you have two options, either to go ahead and pay or download your QR Code.

“If you chose to download the temporary QR code, you can print it and board with it and pay on arrival in Nigeria. Our strong recommendation is that if you do not want to spend too much time at the airport, print out the final QR Code. If you have the final QR Code, it takes minutes to go through the airport protocol in Nigeria.

“Since passengers filled questionnaires and PCR results can be seen online, it is easy to check after seven days if a passenger tested positive. Then, we can easily go back and check whether what we have on our system is a genuine PCR result or not.”

In accordance to all Dr Aliyu said, he stated that the team will check the questionnaire to see if an intending passenger admitted to having some symptoms before coming on board.