We Are Cautious About Bringing Nigerians Abroad Home – FG

The federal government says it is cautious about evacuating Nigerians abroad home for fear they may import Coronavirus (COVID-19) into the country.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, stated this on Tuesday, during the presidential taskforce briefing on COVID-19.

Onyeama said the situation of Nigerians in foreign countries was of concern to the government, adding that there were certain measures the government had to put in place before bringing them home.

He added that, with the knowledge that most of the confirmed cases in the country are people coming from abroad, the country was cautions of bringing them home, so as not to increase the cases in the country.

“We don’t want Nigerians abroad coming in to bring in more Covid-19 cases. We are trying to find quarantine centres approved by relevant authorities. But most hotels don’t want to be used for quarantine centres.”

He further said the plan of the government was to bring in evacuees to Abuja and Lagos State, adding that some hotels had been located in the two locations.

“We have located some hotels. But our arrangement is that the passengers will have to pay for the hotels.”

He said the government of Lagos and that of Abuja have been trying to bring down the prices of hotels