Nigeria to reciprocate travel restrictions by EU countries – FG

The federal government says it will reciprocate travel ban by countries that have not opened their airspace to Nigeria.

Hadi Sirika, Nigeria’s minister of aviation, represented by Musa Nuhu, director-general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), made this disclosure while speaking on Thursday at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19.

According to the minister, countries in the European Union will be affected.

He said: “On the list of countries (that are banned), we are working on the comprehensive list, but the main one that came up is when the EU opened their borders effective 1st July, Nigeria was among the list of 54 countries that were not allowed to enter the EU,” he said.

“To my understanding, as the situation changes, they are going to look at the list and change it. But so far, we don’t have any contrary information to that first one that Nigeria is banned from going to the EU.

“So, as we open our airspace, we are going to apply the issue of reciprocity to those (EU) countries.”

The minister said, for now, only a few flights per day would be permitted, adding that they would operate as test runs of the protocols put in place to ensure the safe return to international operations.

Sirika also noted that inbound international passengers would be limited to 1,280.

He said only this number would be allowed to fly into the Lagos and Abuja airports once international flights resume on August 29, 2020.