Federal Government has suspended further evacuation of Nigerians stranded abroad because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, who announced this during COVID-19 presidential task force briefing on Wednesday, however, said the process is expected to continue soon.
He said the evacuation was suspended to give room for new measures that would require citizens returning to get tested and self-isolate at home rather than in selected hotels.
Onyeama noted that;
There is going to be a change in previous protocol of evacuation and that is going to affect the timing of any further evacuation we are going to undertake.
Anybody that is going to be evacuated will first of all undergo a test from the countries they are leaving from, at least five days before travel and not later than nine days before.
The minister added that;
Coronavirus test will be a pre-condition for boarding the flights to Nigeria. And if they are positive, they will not be able to board the flight.
On arrival in Nigeria, Aliko Dangote and his other partners (CACOVID) will have in place these units where they will take samples from the passengers coming in and they will hold on to their passports.
According to Onyeama, the evacuees will be able to go home and not into prescribed hotels to self-isolate, stressing that;
Results from coronavirus test samples will then be ready within a day or two; those who are positive will then be taken in for isolation. The whole issue of quarantining in hotels will no longer be necessary. This can also mean more people can also come back more frequently, and it will be a lot easier than it has been up to now.
What we have been asked to do is to cease or suspend all evacuations for now until this new structure is put into place. We are very hopeful that maybe by next week, we should be able to commence evacuation.
As at press time, over 900 Nigerians have been successfully evacuated from United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States and Saudi Arabia.
