ABUJA: Nigeria will install 3-D scanners at major airports for screening air travellers, as a preventive measure against terrorists boarding aircrafts following an attempt by a Nigerian to blow up a US-bound plane.

The scanners will be installed at the four main airports of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt. Nigeria is importing the scanners from Europe or the US to screen passengers at the airports, Harold Demuren, director-general of the country's Civil Aviation Authority, said.

He said the equipment will also be used to check drug trafficking in addition to terrorism. Demuren said passengers who would refuse to be screened by the scanner will be stopped from entering any aircraft. Nigerian citizen Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines Airbus ahead of its landing at Detroit on December 25, is currently under US custody.

After the failed bombing, the country's Federal Airports Authority, a body saddled with the responsibility of running the airports, imported 14 walk-through metal detectors to beef up surveillance at the airports on December 28. Abdulmutallab had commenced his journey to Detroit from Lagos' Murtala Muhammad International Airport, the busiest in Nigeria.