Federal Government of Nigeria on Sunday ruled out the possibility of restricting foreign travellers from visiting Nigeria despite travel bans on the country by Canada, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
This is even as the government stated that most of the in-bound passengers that tested positive for COVID-19 were from the UK.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this on during a monitored television programme on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Sunday.
Ehanire said it was unfortunate the quick reaction of some countries to the Omicron strain. He added that even the World Health Organisation had said recently that countries should focus more on collaboration rather than shutting borders.
According to him, Nigeria at moment has no plans restricting anybody coming from another country.
Recall that the WHO had two weeks ago designated the omicron variant as a variant of concern. In the same direction, the NCDC had last week announced that the country had reported three cases of the variant. Before this, the Canadian government had announced that it found two individuals with the variant who had travel history to Nigeria.
The UK on Saturday night also announced that it found 21 cases of the omicron variant which were linked to Nigeria. It announced that it would, from Monday (today), restrict all flights emanating from Nigeria.
It also suspended all pending visa applications in Nigeria due to the ban on flights from Nigeria due to the Omicron variant.
In a statement on Sunday, the commission said, “To support the UK Government’s aim to protect public health from COVID-19 and associated variants of concern, UK Visas and Immigration will pause making decisions on visitor visa applications in all red list countries, including Nigeria, until travel restrictions are lifted.
“If you apply for a visit visa in a red list country and you meet the UK Immigration Rules, your application will be paused. You will not receive a decision on your visit visa application whilst red list travel restrictions remain in place. You will not be able to request a refund of your visa fee once you have given your biometrics at a Visa Application Centre. If you already hold a valid visit visa and are intending to travel to England as a visitor from a red list country, you will not be allowed to enter.”
The UK said there are only very limited exemptions to travel and entry requirements for critical workers and medical and compassionate cases.”
