Nigeria will upgrade its airport security with 3-Dimensional (3-D) Total Body Imaging Scanner in all the nation’s airports, Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Harold Demuren has said.
The Netherlands also announced yesterday that it will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States, saying that could have stopped the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing.
Umar Farouk Mutallab is charged with attempting to blow up a United States passenger plane, which took off from The Netherlands. Farouk reportedly started his journey from the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria.
Speaking at a world press conference after a security meeting at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos, Demuren said nobody including crew members would be allowed to board an aircraft without passing through all aviation security screening procedures.
He said the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) has begun the process to get the equipment by 2010.
Demuren said that Nigeria airports like any other airport in the world has metal detectors and body scanners at her disposal but the present situation has called for an intensified security measures.
According to him, 100 percent examination was mandatory for all persons and crew members traveling in and out of Nigeria.
He said, “Secondary screening of passengers and the carry-on baggage should be total and performed for all departing flights at the boarding gates including body search.
He said liquids, gels and aecrosols should not be allowed on board aircraft without compliance with the requirements of 100ml for liquids and placed in transparent re-sealable plastic bags.
Demuren said though many of these measures were already in place before now, they are being repeated for emphasis. He warned terrorists to be wary of passing through Nigeria.
Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst told a news conference that the U.S. had not wanted these scanners to be used previously because of privacy concerns but now the Obama administration has agreed that “all possible measures will be used on flights to the U.S.,”
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Friday carrying undetected explosives, law enforcement authorities said, adding that 23-year-old Nigerian tried but failed to blow up the plane carrying 289 people.
“It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster,” Ter Horst said, calling the situation a “professional” al-Qaida terror attack.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol has 15 body scanners, each costing more than $200,000. But until now neither the European Union nor the U.S. have approved the routine use of the scanners at European airports.
The announcement came hours after Dutch officials said they would immediately begin to use full body scanners on flights headed to the U.S.
Body scanners that peer underneath clothing have been available for years, but privacy advocates say they are a “virtual strip search” because they display an image of the body onto a computer screen.
Ian Dowty, a lawyer with Action on Rights of the Child, said allowing minors to pass through the scanners violates child pornography laws.
“It shows genitalia,” he told The Associated Press. “As far as English law is concerned … it’s unlawful if it’s indecent.”