‘13m Nigerians’re Smokers’

From Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo,

Osun State, Nigeria: The average rate of active smokers in Nigeria was yesterday put at 13 million , while adult smoking rate was put at 17 percent.
Speaking at the sensitisation meeting for members of Osun State House of Assembly on Osun State proposed Smoke Free Bill, the State Commissioner for Health,Lanre Afolabi, noted that since half smokers die of tobacco related diseases, it also showed that over 6.5 million Nigerians are on death row due to tobacco addiction.

The commissioner stressed that it was alarming that in 2003 the overall prevalence of tobacco for youths in Nigeria was 18.1 percent and for senior executive 13.9 percent. He also gave the figure of the rapidly growing annual average rate of tobacco use in Africa and developing countries as 4.7 percent compared with the 3.4 percent of other countries.

He pointed out that in 2006 , the data recorded was 9.527 tobacco related causes in 26 state owned health facilities, and within the same period. The commissioner said the bill was set to protect the present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption in the state.

While speaking on the Bill, the Speaker, Osun State House of Assembly, Hon. Adejare Bello, said the Bill seeks to provide a legal framework for the control of the use of tobacco products and exposure to tobacco smoke, in order to protect the health of the individual. He described tobacco smoking as a major risk factor for about 44 different kind of diseases, saying there are over 4,000 carcinogens in tobacco smoking.

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=143401
http://anax1a.pressmart.net/nigeriantribune/NT/NT/2009/05/05/ArticleHtmls/05_05_2009_023_007.shtml http://allafrica.com/stories/200905150116.html
http://odili.net/news/source/2009/may/22/703.html
http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-275366.0.html

Re: Tobacco lobbyist and the National Tobacco Bill

In the May 11, 2009 edition of your esteemed newspaper, Mr. Moses Adeoja’s reaction to Mr. Philip Jakpor’s story was published.

Observers and readers of events unfolding in relation to the National Tobacco Control Bill and Tobacco companies operating in Nigeria need no further clarification, as the truth and facts of the matter are crystal clear. Tobacco giants like BAT have for years hidden the truth about their product from the consumers and the general public.

The main issue is that BAT was delisted from the Ghanian Stock Exchange, how it came to be is definitely irrelevant. The issue of health should never be compromised: health is wealth. Whether BAT still operates in Ghana is also not relevant. This fact should be clear to all health conscious individuals, including Mr. Moses who claims to live in Ghana but wrote from Garki, Abuja, that Tobacco Kills. No matter how you want to look at this issue, Tobacco is a worsening epidemic which should be immediately controlled or better still stopped and this is what the National Tobacco Control Bill isset to achieve.

Akinola Tosin is a public health advocate and wrote in from Lagos, Nigeria

Hard Times Await Tobacco Smokers In Osun

Worried by the danger inherent in the smokng of tobacco, the Nigeria Tobacco Situation Analysis (NTSA) and Nigeria Heart Foundation (NHF) are proposing to present a bill to Osun State House of Assembly to ban smoking in public places across the state.

The drafting of the bill titled, "Osun State Prohibition of Smoking in Public Place Bill 2009" is at advanced stage, according to the groups.

NIGERIA VERSUS BIG TOBACCO

On February 4, 2009, the National Tobacco Control Bill 2009 scaled through Second Reading at the Senate. The Bill sponsored by Senator Olorunnibe Mamora seeks to regulate the manufacturing, sale and distribution of tobacco products in the country. Essentially, the bill domesticates the provisions of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco (FCTC) which Nigeria signed on June 28, 2004 and ratified on October 20, 2005.

Senate President David Mark, apparently encouraged by the overwhelming support fellow senators accorded the bill during the Second Plenary Reading and in accordance with legislative practice, referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Health for fine-tuning before its passage. The Senate President and indeed several other distinguished senators who took the floor during the Second Reading spoke in favour of the quick passage of the bill. They enumerated the positive impacts the bill promised for public health and its potential for saving the lives of millions of Nigerian youths from tobacco addiction.

Specifically, the Senate President closed the plenary with an admonition to his fellow senators to shun every overture by Big Tobacco to undermine or delay the passage of the bill. He predicted that the tobacco industry will certainly do all within its powers to distract the Senate from working for speedy passage of the public health bill but that the Senate should stand firm for public health and the well-being of Nigerian.

True to the Senate President's prediction, since February the tobacco industry since February has deployed strategies to undermine the bill. The industry has engaged media spin doctors to feed Nigerians with a pot pouri of lies and propaganda. They have recruited surrogates and hatchet men to distort scientifically documented data on the impact of tobacco use on public health, the economy and the environment.

Page 60, THISDAY, Vol. 14, No. 5112Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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.

SOURCE

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