Reps to engage Jonathan over unsigned bills on resumption

Emeka Ihedioha, deputy speaker of the House of Representatives

The leadership of the House of Representatives on Wednesday unveiled plans to engage President Goodluck Jonathan on the need to assent to pending bills passed by the National Assembly.

The unsigned bills have over the past four months caused sour relations between the executive and the legislature. The lawmakers have threatened to invoke relevant sections of the constitution to veto the president on resumption.

Some of the bills not assented to are National Assembly Service Bill 2011; Harmonised Retirement Age of Professors of Tertiary Institutions Bill, 2011; Chartered Institute of Capital Registrars Bill 2011; Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Nigeria Bill 2001; Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology Bill, 2011; Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2011; Discrimination against Persons Living with HIV and AIDS (Prohibition) Act 2011; National Bio-safety Management Agency Bill 2011; National Agriculture Seed Council Bill 2011; Federal Capital Territory Appropriation Bill 2011; State of the Nation Address Bill 2011.

Others include River Basins Development Authorities (Amendment) Bill 2011; Nigerian Integrated Water Resources Management Commission (Establishment) Bill 2011; Federal Capital Territory Water Board Bill, 2011; Air Force Institute of Technology of Nigeria Bill 2011 and National Tobacco (Control) Bill 2011.

Emeka Ihedioha, deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, gave the assurance while addressing the executives of the Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology led by John Onuorah. They solicited the intervention of the House on the Nigerian Council of Food Science and Technology Bill 2011 passed on June 1, 2011.

Ihedioha, who allayed fears over the annulment of the bills passed by the National Assembly, said “the National Assembly has done its responsibility. We are on recess, so when we reconvene we will find out the status of this bill and take it from there.
“Obviously, the import of the Nigerian Council of Food and Technology bill cannot be over emphasised and as our elders have enumerated, the necessity for this bill to become law is obviously to address some of our challenges today in the country, particularly wealth creation and job creation which is very key and fundamental to our national stability.”

“We will look at it and I’m sure when we look at it, we will get back to you and if there is any other lobby that we need, we would do it, we want to engage the executive appropriately to ensure that if there are any misunderstanding with regards to the status of this bill, we will try and provide the necessary explanation by facilitating it.”

Speaking earlier, Onuorah explained that the executive bill when signed into law would regulate the training and practice of the profession of food science and technology.

He noted that the bill enjoyed overwhelming support during the debate on the floor of the House and Senate as well as various stakeholders from   NAFDAC, SON, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Association of Food Beverage and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE), Institute of Public Analysts of Nigeria (IPAN), the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC), many universities and polytechnics, the National Planning Commission, among others, during the public hearing.

He said, “It is important for the president to give assent to this executive bill for the following reasons: the issues of food safety and food security have become too complex and complicated for the untrained and therefore require professional skills for proper management.”

Apart from classical issues of food hygiene and sanitation, there is the increasing global concern on the impact of additives, veterinary drug residues, pesticides and other agrochemicals, microbial mutations and radiation contamination on food safety. There are frequent national and global alerts on threats to the food supply chain to the extent that several deaths are recorded periodically on account of accidental and/or deliberate contamination of food. Therefore, we require well trained food professionals to mitigate these problems.

“There is need to properly regulate the practice of the profession that deals with the post-harvest issues of food in the same manner as the practice of pharmacy is regulated for drugs. In this way, an agency like NAFDAC that uses professional pharmacists to regulate drug products will also use professional food scientists and technologists to regulate food products.”

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BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO INTENSIFIES INDIRECT ADVERTISING

By Seun Akioye

Dominant tobacco manufacturing company in Nigeria, the British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has intensified its Corporate Responsibility campaign with the full page advertorial in the Guardian newspaper of October 15th 2009.

The Corporate Responsibility advertisement published by the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) featured the various gift presentations to certain section of the tobacco farming community in Nigeria. Such presentations include goats, provision of bore hole and teaching the skills in fish farming.

The advertisement also coincide with an advertorial by the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) published in the Punch newspaper of the same date asking the Senate to fast track the passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill. The advertorial published under the title ‘Tobacco Facts’ is part of a series of enlightenment campaign lecture by the groups. The publication has dealth with various issues regarding tobacco and health in Nigeria

Meanwhile tobacco control community has reacted swiftly condemning the action and calling the publication of the tobacco company as indirect advertisement. The NTCA in a statement condemned the advertorial calling it propaganda. “There are more pressing social issues in Nigeria that BATN foundation can tackle not the feakle corporate social responsibility of providing goats and garri for farmers. This is indirect advertisement and we condemn it in totality. Let them however spend that money in looking for a solution to the various ailments caused by their products.”

Media officer ERA/FoEN, Philip Jakpor also in a statement described the publication of the CSR efforts as shambles. “ This is another way of advertising. It is designed to boost the ego and promote the products of British American Tobacco and the gesture does not in any way reflect the true belief of the tobacco industry. It has been asked and we ask again ‘ can a company that produces a product that kills its users ever be socially responsible? The first thing to do to be socially responsible is to stop the production of lethal products. Before they do that, we are calling for Corporate Accountability.”

Interestingly, advertising and marketing sponsorship of any tobacco products have been banned in Nigeria since 2004.

The People v. Big Tobacco

-By Adeola Akinremi

How many people are we willing to sacrifice as a nation to continue to keep the tobacco industry in business? Since the Senate pushed the National Tobacco Bill 2009 through Second Reading in February and mandating Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-led Senate Health Committee to finalise work on the Bill and re-present to the National Assembly for enactment into law, the tobacco industry has become more aggressive in its usual tactics of distorting the truth both in the public places and at the chambers of the National Assembly.

The issue is what does regulation of tobacco product seeks to address in Nigeria. The bill at the Senate would mandate a total reformation and restructuring of how tobacco products are manufactured, marketed and distributed in this country. The nation can thereby see real and swift progress in preventing underage use of tobacco, addressing the adverse health effects of tobacco use and changing the corporate culture of the tobacco industry.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administrative and Control (NAFDAC) and other public health protection agencies have spoken out about the hazards of tobacco and they view the use of tobacco products by our nation’s children as paediatric disease. There is also a consensus within the scientific and medical communities that tobacco products are inherently dangerous. They cause cancer, heart disease and other serious adverse effects.

Until now, the federal and state governments have lacked many of the legal means and resources they need to address the societal problems caused by the use of tobacco products. It is against this backdrop that Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora and the entire Senate should be commended for initiating the bill and moving it through second reading unanimously. The National Tobacco bill will indeed provide a platform for the government to achieve the public health objectives with which they were charged while taking the oath of office.

Beyond the cynicism of the tobacco companies and their hirelings in the Senate and the media who are subverting the truth; the sale of tobacco products to adults would remain legal, but subject to restrictive measures to ensure that they are not sold to underage persons. These measures echoes the mind of federal and state public health officials, the public health community and the public at large that the tobacco industry should be subject to serious regulatory oversight given the industry open admittance that its products kills.

Enacting a comprehensive legislation at this time to implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which Nigeria ratifies in 2005 would ensure a healthy population where burden of treating tobacco-related diseases no longer put pressure on the annual health budget of Nigeria.

Importantly, the speed of enactment of this legislation will show that the government cares more for the future health of the country’s children than for the economic wealth of the tobacco industry.

In Mauritius, an African country with a small population will in June begin implementation of pictorial warnings on cigarette packs that covers 65 per cent of the packets. Pictorial warning is contained in article 11 of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
World Health Organisation particularly approves of tobacco health warnings that contain both pictures and words because they are the most effective at convincing people to quit.

According to the WHO, “Incorporation of Pictorial Warning on tobacco product packets is important as majority of the tobacco users in this country will be able to have informed choice.”
The Senate will therefore be doing this nation a lot of good by passing this bill on time because the burden of cancer in Nigeria is appreciable and tobacco contributes a lot to this. The WHO states that there are an estimated 100,000 new cancer cases in the country each year although observers believe the figure could become as high as 500,000 new cases annually by 2010.

In 2005 cancer killed 89,000 people in Nigeria with 54,000 of this figure below the age of 70. Essentially, with the passage of this bill, which will properly regulate tobacco use, cancer and other tobacco-related diseases are bound to be on the recoil.

***Adeola Akinremi is the African Regional Coordinator, Framework Convention Alliance[FAC] an Inter governmental policy organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland.

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