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Updated: May 25, 2021

COVID-19: FG To Place Travel Restrictions On India, Brazil, Turkey

By Adedayo Babatunde
April 27, 2021
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Aeroplane File photo

The Federal Government on Monday said it would issue a travel advisory in the next two days on inbound flights from India, Brazil and Turkey following the spike of new variants of the COVID-19 virus in the countries.

Mukhtar Muhammad, the Head of the Secretariat of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 who disclosed this at the first briefing of the committee in Abuja expressed concerns over the situation in India, which is a popular destination for Nigerian medical tourists.

He charged Nigerians to keep observing all the regulations and instructions already provided to keep safe from the infection of COVID-19.

He, however, warned the third wave of the pandemic, going by how it has been sweeping through other parts of the world, is close to Nigeria.

He said, “We sympathise with the people of these countries because it is really a very trying time particularly for India, which is recording over 300,000 cases a day and over 2000 deaths.

“It is not easy. India is a prime destination for medical tourism for Nigeria. We know that many Nigerians like to travel to go to India, but now we see the situation that the country has found itself in.

“While we urge Nigerians to limit all travellers to only essential travel, particularly to these affected countries.

“We actually empathise with those countries and what is happening in those climes. However, on our part, we are looking seriously into this issue. We are looking at other considerations that we need to provide.

“We will be providing some travel advice in the next 48, 72 hours with particular reference to both Nigerians and those coming into the country to help advise us.”

Brazil is a South American country with a lot of history with Nigeria. Portuguese is the official language of the country. There are about 90,000 Nigerians legally residing in Brazil as of 2019. It is a huge jump, putting into the context that in 2012 there were only about 3,072 according to 2014 report on regular migrants in Brazil.