ERA hails Osun on smoking ban

By Solaade Ayo-Aderele

The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria has commended the Osun State Government for signing the Osun State Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Bill 2009 into law, saying the decision is one of the most far-reaching efforts taken by any state in the federation to safeguard public health.
The bill prohibits smoking in cinemas, theatres or the stadium, medical establish-ments, hotels, offices, schools and public transportation, nursery institutions and lifts.
Another major highlight of the bill is the prohibition of smoking in both private and public vehicles that have non smoking occupants below the age of 18 on board.
In a statement issued in Lagos and made available to our correspondent, ERA/FoEN said that the Osun State Government had demonstrated its responsiveness to the well-being of its people and public health and should be emulated by other states.
“The Nigerian tobacco control community lauds this enviable step by the Osun State Government, as it will go a long way in checkmating the growing number of tobacco-induced deaths that have been on steady increase,” said ERA/FoEN Programme Manager, Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi.
Oluwafemi however noted that, “Paradoxically, while Osun State has taken practical steps in safe-guarding public health, the National Assembly is still foot-dragging on translating the all-encompassing National Tobacco Control Bill into law, even with the overwhelming support that the bill received at the public hearing on July 20-21 last year.”
Reiterating ERA/FoEN’s call for the National Assembly to expedite action on the NTCB, Oluwafemi said “Nigerians are dying by the seconds due to tobacco addiction, while tobacco manufacturers laugh all the way to the bank.
“Every single day that we delay the implementation of strict laws, there will be more deaths, more ill-health and the economy will suffer,” he said.
“The trend globally shows that only far-reaching laws can stop the gale of deaths spurred by tobacco smoke,” he argued.
According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco currently kills 5.4 million people worldwide, and if current trend continues, it will kill about eight million by 2015.

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Preventing Tobacco Addiction Among Our Women

The recently released statistics by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of an increasing global trend of women and girls who have taken to the deadly habit of tobacco smoking is scary. Of the 5.4 million victims that die every year, 1.5 million are girls and women. In half of the 151 countries recently surveyed, approximately as many girls use tobacco as boys. WHO even claims that Nigeria is not only amongst these countries but now has more female smokers than males. Contestable as this may seem, it is no doubt a warning signal that urgent intervention from all concerned organs of government is necessary.

According to WHO’s Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, the trend in some countries is “extremely worrisome”. She also asserts that that tobacco use “is neither liberating nor glamorous”, contrary to the advert campaign of the marketers. It is probable that this misconception is helping to lure more girls into the widening web of the addictive consumption.
The theme of the 2010 anti-tobacco campaign is focused on ‘tobacco and women’, with an emphasis on marketing to women and the concomitant harmful effects. Similarly, the need for governments to ban the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco is being highlighted, with the aim of eliminating tobacco smoke from all public places. The goal is in tandem with WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
A new strategy being used by manufacturers and marketers is to link smoking with attractiveness, which easily fascinates young girls, ultimately making them helpless victims. Nigeria’s inclusion in countries with worsening tobacco use, it has been revealed, is also traceable to the harmful effects of passive or second-hand smoking. Also, growing social frustration caused by poor governance has led to mass youth unemployment and the erroneous belief that smoking offers some relief, even if temporarily. Up North, seasonal harsh weather sometimes induces more people into smoking. Unfortunately, they end up harming their pulmonary system more than they care to know.
Smoking refers basically to the habit of inhaling smoke from cigarettes. Not a few teenagers imbibe it from their parents, relations and friends, who are smokers. The health consequences are grave, however, for the users as well as those around them. According to the WHO, tobacco smoke contains some 4,000 deadly chemicals, chief of which are vaporized nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar, concentrated at the end of the cigarette stick. The first signs of ill health arising from tobacco use is a slight cough, which graduates to bronchial cough, that later degenerates into lung cough. Research specialists explain that the toxic chemicals settle at the junction of the bronchus and bronchioles, where most cases of lung cancer begin. In addition, the membranes lining the respiratory system become thickened with the irritating chemicals. This causes the removal of the protective cilia which normally absorb dust and pathogenic microbes that could cause life-threatening diseases.
Once the smoke is continually inhaled it contracts the air passage and constricts the voice box or larynx, leading to swollen vocal cords and smokers’ cough. In severe cases, it causes chronic bronchitis and laryngeal cancer. In addition, the presence of the aldehydes in smoke worsens stomach ulcer. Smoke reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood, thereby weakening the power of the cells to function optimally. Its deposits narrow the arteries, causing gangrene, leading to amputation for some victims.
Researches since 1939 have indicated the bad effects of smoking in advanced countries. But the WHO says that today over 80 percent of the world’s one billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries. This reflects the fact that several major cigarette manufacturers have relocated from the advanced economies with their more stringent anti-tobacco laws, and are now consciously exporting death to the developing countries. According to the Programme Manager of Environmental Rights in Nigeria, an affiliate of Friends Of The Earth, Akin Oluwafemi, two persons die each day in Lagos hospitals as a consequence of tobacco–related ailments.
This is a dangerous trend, and we are alarmed, in this connection, that the Senator Olorunimbe Mamora-sponsored Anti-tobacco Bill is suffering from what he terms deliberate moves to scuttle it by some of his colleagues. The fact that the Senate Committee on Health is headed by a female lawmaker, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, and the focus of this year’s anti-tobacco theme is on discouraging women from smoking, should help to speed up the bill’s passage into law.
Expansion in economic production, leading to mass creation of jobs especially for the idle youth, will reduce the helplessness of the government in accepting the short-term economic benefits of tobacco manufacturing in the country. What use is it, in the long run, to offer jobs to some citizens in tobacco factories and farms, and pay taxes into the public coffers, only for the people’s health to be destroyed some years later at a prohibitive cost to public health care and citizens’ purses? The government cannot fold its arms and allow this preventable scourge to ravage the public, already battling with a legion other woes. No effort should be spared in discouraging Nigerian smokers, especially the future mothers of our children, from preventable death.

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Tobacco or health? It's decision time!

-AKINSHOLA OWOEYE

The Senate's failure to act on the National Tobacco Control Bill (NTCB) immediately after the public hearing of July 2009, has now made the bill a toy in the hand of a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Senator Kamarudeen Adedibu representing Oyo South Constituency, no doubt, did a hatchet man's job and got a pat on the back when he said the National Tobacco Control Bill which has passed through its second stage at the Senate is dead. This statement credited to Adedibu in national dailies is a slap on the face of his colleagues. After all, no one can deny the dangerous effects of tobacco use.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), tobacco currently kills 5.4 million people globally, and if left unchecked, this number will increase to 8 million - with devastating results for developing countries which will contribute about 70 percent of that figure. In the 20th century, the tobacco epidemic killed 100 million people, but the WHO says in this century, it could kill one billion people.
Meanwhile, statistics from Nigeria are staggering. A survey from the 2006 census, for instance, reveals that more than 13 million Nigerians smoke cigarettes, even as another one conducted in 11 Lagos State government-owned hospitals that same year revealed that at least two persons die every day from a tobacco-related disease, while over 9,000 cases of tobacco infections were recorded.
Also, every year, smoking among young people increases by at least 20 percent, a situation which makes Nigeria and indeed Africa the fastest-growing market for tobacco manufacturers The Federal Government, on September 24, 2001, at what it called the first official Investment Summit, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with BAT. Under the terms of agreement, the tobacco giant was to invest a whopping $150 million in the country. It was part of government's search for "foreign investors," and BAT pretended to be the saviour of the former President, President Olusegun Obasanjo, after his tireless search for foreign investment. If the Obasanjo regime did it ignorantly, the present administration cannot claim to be ignorant about the fact that tobacco kills.
There are several ways to view the Senate's stalling action on the bill. The tobacco industry has been given time to hook more young Nigerians on smoking, as every lost day sees another replacement smoker recruited - and we may not see the implication of this action until about 20 years' time. That said, delay on the important health bill will create avoidable problems for the future generation.
Indeed, in developed countries, tobacco companies and their owners are being isolated and choked with harsh laws. Now they invade our continent in the name of foreign investment. Already, tobacco use is responsible for one in 10 adult deaths, and by 2030, the figure is expected to be one in six, or 10 million deaths each year - more than any other cause including the projected death tolls from pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, and the complications of childbirth for that year combined. If current trends persist, about 500 million people alive today will eventually be killed by tobacco, half of them in productive middle age, losing 20 to 25 years of life.
Tobacco contains nicotine, a substance that is recognised to be addictive by the WHO. Tobacco dependence is listed in the International Classification of Diseases, and fulfills the key criteria for addiction or dependence, including compulsive use. Cigarettes, unlike chewed tobacco, enable nicotine to reach the brain rapidly, within a few seconds of inhaling smoke.
However, the toll of death and disability from smoking in developing countries is yet to be felt. This is because the diseases caused by smoking can take several decades to develop. Even when smoking is very common in a population, the damage to health may not yet be visible. This point can be most clearly demonstrated by trends in lung cancer in the United States.
The Osun State government has signed a state bill to regulate the activities of tobacco companies and tobacco use in the state. While one expects other states to emulate them, the Senate should rise to protect public health by making a demand on its health committee to produce a report on the public hearing for the passage of the bill.
That way, the Senate will etch its name in gold under the leadership Senator David Mark for passing the National tobacco control bill.

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FCT tasks N’Assembly on Smoking Bill

From Terhemba Daka, Abuja

THE Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has called on the National Assembly to expedite action on the passage of the bill on tobacco smoking to aid it in the fight against smoking in public places in the territory.

The FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, on Tuesday declared that unless the parliament passes the of legislation into law, the administration’s avowed commitment to stopping smoking in public places in the nation’s capital would be a ruse. “The passage of the bill before the National Assembly will give us the necessary impetus and backing for the enforcement”, he said. Mohammed, who decried the prevalence of smokers in spite of the ban on tobacco smoking in Abuja by the administration, spoke at a press conference to commemorate the 2010 World No Tobacco Day, which was held in Abuja yesterday.

Represented by the Federal Capital Territory Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Precious Gbeneol, the minister stressed that without the anti-tobacco law in place, the ban on smoking in the capital territory cannot be effectively enforced.

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Anti-tobacco campaign not yet success

By Gbenro Adeoye

As the splatter of the morning rain sounded on the roofing of his workshop, Femi Abayomi, an artist, puffed harder on his cigarette, undeterred by the health warning now boldly written on cigarette packs.
Mr Abayomi says he is not yet ready to give up his smoking habit, a routine he has kept to for 18 years, adding that it would take more than “health warning prints” to kill his addiction to cigarette smoking.
“I’ve tried several times to drop the habit but it’s been very difficult to do, you know. Smoking has its own advantages; it prevents cold, relaxes the mind, induces sleep, and aids digestion,” he says.
Killer tobacco
According to the WHO (World Health Organisation), tobacco use is the second cause of death worldwide, after hypertension, killing one in 10 adults with more than five million deaths from related causes.
WHO also estimates that tobacco will be the leading cause of death worldwide by 2030, killing about 10 million people annually, with 70 to 80 per cent of the deaths occurring in low and middle income countries, like Nigeria.
Smokers’ doggedness
In spite of the frightening WHO data and various campaigns against tobacco smoking, many smokers continue to disregard the calls, arguing that available statistics do not substantiate the role of tobacco in the death of cancer patients.
“We don hear of people wey no dey smoke (non-smokers) who die of cancer, and we dey see old people wey don dey smoke since dem dey young, wey live old and don’t die of cancer, so nothing that say the cancer people get am from tobacco,” says Rabiu Jimoh, a road transport worker, who has been smoking for about 10 years.
The World No Tobacco Day was initiated in 1987 by the World Health Assembly to give the tobacco epidemic and its effects global attention, and promote adherence to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which highlights specific tobacco control measures.
Effecting a comprehensive ban
As stated in Article 13 of the Framework about putting a comprehensive ban on Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, the WHO over the weekend urged “governments to protect the world’s 1.8 billion young people by imposing a ban on all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”
Nigerian smokers have, however, argued that such an action would be counter-productive, as this would make youth more curious.
“Everyone already knows about cigarettes; it’s already a popular product. Complete banning of adverts will only make the young ones more curious, and want to try it out,” says Mr Abayomi.
Smoking in public places is already prohibited in Nigeria, an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment, but Mr Abayomi suggests that only visual effects of tobacco can deter smoking addicts and protect the youth from picking up the habit.
“If they start showing video footages of the health implications and effects to people, on T.V, at work, and in schools, that’s only when people will come to terms with the practical effects of everything,” Mr Abayomi says.

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Tobacco: Experts blame poor taxation for increase in smoking

-Yekeen Nurudeen

INCREASE in the number of smokers has been attributed to the cheap price of tobacco products, which in turn is caused by Federal Government’s inability to impose heavy tax on the products.
An expert in tobacco control, Akinbode Oluwafemi, made the observation yesterday in Abuja at a one-day workshop organised for journalists on the role of the media in the campaign against smoking in public places in the Federal Capital (FCT).He said if heavy taxation can be imposed on tobacco, the cost of production will increase and this will in turn lead to the increase in the price of the products thereby discouraging youths from smoking. A pack of cigarettes that sells for N200 in Nigeria, according to him, goes for about $5 in the United States of America due to the heavy taxation placed on the manufacturing companies, even as he stressed that “smoking is a sure gateway to drug addiction.”Describing smoking as a major risk factor for different cancer cases, Akinbode said it is also linked to about 15 various cases of cancer in the human body.

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WHO On Passive Smoking

EDITORIAL

The warning by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that passive smoking constitutes a global threat, is revealing and must be checked.
The UN agency had in its second major report on the "tobacco epidemic" released last week, said second-hand or passive smoking killed nearly 600,000 people each year. WHO, which also warned that tobacco is still the leading preventable cause of death, killing five million people every year, said more and more people were likely to suffer from the harmful effects of passive smoking.
According to the agency, only 5 per cent of people in the world are protected from second-hand smoke in public areas. Insisting that unless more stringent measures were taken to minimize smoking's impact, WHO said that of the world's 100 most populous cities, just over a fifth, or 22 are smoke free.
Last year, WHO unveiled six strategies that countries could implement to protect their people from the harm of cigarettes. These include smoking bans, higher tobacco taxes and bans on tobacco advertising. The 2005 WHO Framework on Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) made it clear that banning of smoking in public places is essential to not only protect nonsmokers, but to make it easier for those who want to quit to stay smoke-free.
WHO, which lamented that just a mere 17 nations had passed comprehensive smoke- free laws, raised the alarm that the annual death toll from tobacco related diseases could rise to eight million by 2030.
It is sad that despite the well documented effects of smoking on humans, countries have more or less, continued to pay lip-service to fighting what from all indications, constitutes one of the major health challenges of the 21st century. No less a body than the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said that 200,000 workers die every year due to exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke at work. WHO estimates that around 700 million children, or almost half of the world's children, breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke which is generally carcigenous.
Given the insalubrious effects of tobacco smoking, governments the world over must rise to the challenge of not only protecting passive smokers, but ensuring that smokers alike are regularly reminded of the risks they face. There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. Action is, therefore, needed by governments to protect their people from the dangers posed by this type of smoking.
Besides, the fact that more than 94 per cent of people remain unprotected by smoke-free laws three years after international tobacco control measures introduced the requirement, shows that much work needs to be done. Governments must implement the 2005 WHO Framework which 170 nations have signed. As it is said, passive smoking kills people and being passive about it will also kill.
For Nigeria, which is a signatory to the WHO FCTC, the challenge posed by passive smoking is by no means less daunting. Although there are no available data on passive smoking, a report by an Expert Committee on Non-communicable diseases in 1988 certified that 4.5 million Nigerians were smokers. The committee set up by the federal health authorities, also said Nigerians smoked close to seven million sticks of cigarettes daily, which according to then Health Minister, Prof. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, added up to 49 million sticks a week, or 196 million sticks a month.
It is pertinent to add that it was during Olikoye's tenure as Health Minister under the Ibrahim Babangida regime, that a law against smoking in public places was enacted. Unfortunately, the law all but exists in name as a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) had it that over 60 per cent of Nigerian undergraduates smoked. Given the very lax nature of the law on smoking and the general lack of awareness about passive smoking in the country and its consequences, it is not unlikely that the general population are at risk.
While it must be stated that Nigerians are also exposed to other equally deleterious forms of fumes such as acid rain and fumes from automobiles, no effort should be spared to save lives that are exposed to this danger. Indeed, every single life is important and as much as possible, life should be safeguarded.
There is no gainsaying that smoking places a huge burden on health care provisions all around the world. Governments should, therefore, embark on aggressive public enlightenment campaigns to sensitise Nigerians on the effects of passive smoking, and indeed, smoking in general. No effort should be spared to ensure that Nigerians stay healthy.

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Anti-smoking law: Only 1% of Nigerians are protected by smoke-free laws —Report

By Waheed Bakare

Only one per cent of Nigeria’s over 140 million people are protected by strong smoke-free laws, a new report released last Wednesday by Global Smokefree Partnership and the American Cancer Society has revealed.

Besides, the report also stated that in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, 55 per cent of school pupils were not aware that secondhand smoke is harmful to health.

Medical experts had repeatedly said there was scientific evidence that secondhand smoke was a proven cause of serious diseases and premature death.

According to the report, “Global Voices: Rebutting the Tobacco Industry, Winning Smokefree Air,” nearly 90 per cent of people on the African continent are without meaningful protection from secondhand smoke.

The report noted that it was worrisome that Africa, which accounted for 14 per cent of the world’s population, had just four per cent of the world’s smokers today. Despite the infinitesimal percentage of the world’s smokers on the continent, the report noted that African nations would soon undergo the highest increase in the rate of tobacco use among developing countries, “with more than half the continent expected to double its tobacco use within 12 years if current trends continue.”

“If we don’t act now on tobacco control in Africa, millions of lives will be lost because tobacco is now becoming an issue in Africa,” Tom Glynn of the Global Smokefree Partnership told the Agence France Presse.

Despite the gloomy picture, the report noted that many African countries were resisting tobacco industry’s aggressive efforts to stop governments from putting in place smoke-free laws.

“For the first time in history, we have the tools in hand to prevent a pandemic. Recent data suggests that, with current trends, more than half of the region of Africa will double its tobacco consumption within 12 years. Smoke-free public places are one example of a low-cost and extremely effective intervention that must be implemented now to protect health.” said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

To back up its claim, the report observed that Kenya and Niger had enacted national smoke-free policies within the last year, and South Africa, which had been smoke-free since March 2007, still played a major role on the continent.

The South Africa’s inspiring role, the report added, was an indication that smoke-free laws could work on the continent.

“In a first for the region, Mauritius recently passed a law that is close to meeting the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control standards, ranking among the strongest anti-smoking measures in the world,” the report stated.

But it said implementation remained a challenge in many places such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Uganda, adding that “barriers include identifying resources for implementation, and tobacco industry opposition to smoke-free laws.”

For instance, a Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Fred Agbaj, regretted that since anti-smoking law was passed in 1990, Nigerian law enforcement agencies were yet to arrest and prosecute any violator.

He said, “I am aware that in this country, the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida passed the anti-smoking law in 1990. By this law, smoking was banned in public places. I am aware that the law is still in force but no arrest has been made. Police have access to public places where people smoke but how many have they arrested?”

Agbaje, who spoke on the phone with our correspondent, advised the government to have the will, resources and determination to enforce this law in the interest of the majority who were not smokers.

However, the Programme Manager, Enviromental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Mr. Bode Oluwafemi, faulted the report and disagreed with Agbaje.

He said the report was a “fallacy”, adding that ban of smoking in public places was still in force in Nigeria. He said the law specified that smoking should not be carried out indoors.

Oluwafemi described anti-smoking law as “citizen law meant to teach attitude.” He said if people for instance, smoke within a court premises, they had not violated the law as such places were not indoors.

“There is a lot of misconception about this law. The law says you cannot smoke indoors. If you go to government buildings, schools, restaurants, hospitals, do people smoke there? The answer is no. Enforcing the law does not mean people should be jailed. The law is self-enforcing and it is meant to teach attitudes,” he said.

In spite of this sharp division, the report exposed tobacco industry’s tactics aimed at holding back legislation and convincing African governments that tobacco was important to economic activity, that raising taxes on cigarettes and implementing smoke-free laws would result in revenue and job losses.

The report estimated that in 2010, smoking would kill six million people worldwide, 72 per cent of them would come from low and middle-income countries.

It added that if the current trends were not abated, tobacco would claim the lives of seven million people a year by 2020 and more than eight million people annually by 2030.

The report, which was launched at a media summit hosted by the American Cancer Society on November 12, 2009, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, observed that some one billion people in 45 countries were now protected from health hazards of secondhand tobacco smoke at work and in public places.

“Despite this progress, more than 85 per cent of the world’s people are without such protection,” it warned.

Countries that have enacted strong, nationwide smoke-free laws include: Bermuda, Bhutan, Colombia, Djibouti, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Most Canadian provinces/territories and Australian states/territories have also enacted such laws.

The National Secretary-General, Nigerian Medical Association Dr. Ken Okoro, said secondhand smoking is better known as perceive smoking. He said percesive smoking was when non a smoker inhale the smoke puffed out by a smoker.

Okoro in a telephone interview confirmed that perceive smoker could be at higher risk compare to a smoker because perceive smoker had no control over the quantity of smoke he or she inhales.

He said, “Sometimes a perceive smoker is sometimes more expose to danger than actual smoker. A smoker inhales the smoke and puff out some. So, he can determine the level of smoke he inhales. Whereas, a perceive smoker innocently inhales as much smoke quantity as possible and cannot puff out any smoke.

“This presupposes that a secondhand smoker can have lung cancer, small blood vessel or cardiovascular disease.”

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Femi Kuti - Why I Quit Smoking

You just mentioned that you neither drink nor smoke. Where do you get your kicks?

It is my work. Hard work.

But it may be difficult for people to believe you.

That is their business. I have smoked before and I don‘t deny it. But I have stopped. I stopped smoking for fifteen years. I did it again for two years and finally stopped. I started smoking after my mother died because I was very depressed. I have not done it for a couple of years now. Because of this same argument, I stopped. I don‘t need to smoke to become a great man. Even some people say that I don‘t smoke like my dad because I am not as strong as he was. I will not smoke.

Why the decision?

It is bad for my health. It gives me chest pains, but the main reason is on moral ground. It is because I address a serious and important subject that concerns justice and values and I don‘t want anybody to rubbish me by saying that I am a smoker or that I smoke Indian hemp. If I am fighting social ills and I continue to smoke, people will not take me seriously and I don‘t want that. Even if most members of my band smoke, I have to restrain myself just to combat issues. There are so many social ills that I am fighting against in my music and I cannot afford to allow myself to be embarrassed and dismissed as a hemp smoker.

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Nigerians smoke 93 million sticks of cigarettes yearly

-Yekeen Nurudeen

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also said that eight million people die yearly of tobacco-related diseases worldwide.

While receiving an award as the WHO Man of the Year 2009 on tobacco control, Modibbo said he was surprised when the British American Tobacco (BAT) Company told him that it produces 93 million cigarettes, which Nigerians consume yearly.

“I was so happy when I visited BAT on invitation in Ibadan and they said they produce 93 million sticks of cigarettes yearly. But when I asked them which country they export them to, they said it is consumed in Nigeria,” the former minister stated.

Presenting the award on behalf of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Olaokun Soyinka, the son of Prof. Wole Soyinka, said globally about eight million poeple die of tobacco-related diseases.

Soyinka noted that the reason the company was allowed to establish in the country had been defeated, as the organisation had not been able to employ up to 900 people so far, adding that farmers were finding it difficult to pay for the machines provided to them by the tobacco firm.He lamented that the tobacco company was driven away from its home country only to relocate to tNigeria to kill its youths.

According to him, WHO takes the issue of tobacco seriously as the organisation is doing all it can to reduce the supply and demand of the product. He, however, lamented that the company is lobbying the National Assembly to kill the bill banning smoking in the country.

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Nigeria's smoking habit

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Tobacco kills close to five million people yearly worldwide with over 70 percent of deaths occurring in developing countries including Nigeria where about 12 percent of the population are addicted to nicotine.

Now the Nigerian parliament seems to have responded with a tobacco control bill.

If passed, this could be the biggest tobacco crackdown in the history of Nigeria.

From Lagos, the BBC's Fidelis Mbah, reports.

Court adjourns Tobacco’s case

By Kolade Adeyemi

Kano High Court presided over by Justice Wada Rano has again adjourned the case between the Kano State Government and British American Tobacco (BAT)Company to October 28 for its adoption of addresses in application filed by the parties involved.

When the case came up for hearing last Thursday, the judge dismissed the request of the company (defendant) to amend everything they had already filed in adherence to the prayers of the plaintiff counsel, Mr. Babatunde Irukere.

Irukere had earlier challenged the prayer of the counsel for the defendant for an amendment of what they had earlier filed, arguing it would create delays and frustrate the process of justice. In his submission, the plaintiff counsel argued that, discussing the service of process for the past two and half years is still dragging the case backwards, pointing out that the court has shown in its ruling that in the interest of justice and urgency, the court should expedite action so that the merit of the case could be seen.

Earlier, counsel for the defendants, Phillip Morris International SA, Ebun Sofunde (SAN) argued that they were ready to move any application, but disagreed that there was a difference between resolve and hearing, which was the bone of contention.

The parties resolved to correspond all applications and process within 45 days to allow the proper hearing of the case which was adjourned to October 28.

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