FG bars  foreign passengers from boarding without Quick Response Certification

The Federal Government has barred passengers coming into the country from boarding without going through Quick Response Code Certification.

The initiative was made known during a press briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 by the National Coordinator of the Task Force, Dr. Sani Aliyu, saying the federal government says is geared towards easing congestion on arrival at the airports, hence introducing the new online protocol.

The process will make air passengers coming into the country to go through Quick Response Code before boarding without, which they won’t be allowed to board aircraft certifying that they are free from Covid-19 pandemic.

The Government further noted the idea has become a matter of necessity in a bid to curtail congestion on arrival as well as to avoid the spread of Covid-19 pandemic.

He buttressed that with over 4,000 passengers arriving daily in Lagos and Abuja airports alone, paper usage at the airports won’t be sustainable.

Aliyu, however, posited that Quick Response Code would make it easier to manage passengers.

“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,” Aliyu said.

He also averred that the process has to do with a QR certificate presentation before leaving for the airport, stating such move would also reduce the stress passengers go through on arrival at the airport terminals.

“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,” Aliyu said