International Resource Center

Nigerian Advocates Take On Big Tobacco

As multinational tobacco companies target developing countries, Nigeria with its population of more than 140-million people has been a prime target.

Nigerian advocates and government leaders are fighting back with a powerful campaign to reduce tobacco use and save lives.

In recent months, this campaign has taken several important steps to limit harmful tobacco marketing, support measures to reduce tobacco use, and educate the public about the health hazards of smoking:

• On November 7, 2007, the Nigerian government sued British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International and International Tobacco Ltd. for more than $40 billion to cover the cost of treating tobacco-related diseases.

The lawsuit also seeks an injunction to prevent the tobacco companies from marketing, promoting or selling tobacco products to minors and to require other steps to protect public health. With Lagos state in the lead, five Nigerian states earlier had filed similar lawsuits.

• Nigerian advocates, led by Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (FoEN) have fought an effort by British American Tobacco to obtain tax waivers and other concessions for building a cigarette factory in Nigeria.

Such tax concessions would reduce the price of cigarettes and make them more affordable and appealing to youth. Tax concessions could also violate the international tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which Nigeria has signed and ratified and which calls on governments to increase tobacco prices and taxes to discourage tobacco use.

• In October 2007, a weekly radio program called Tobacco and You began airing on three FM frequencies in Nigeria. The 15-minute magazine program - sponsored by the ERA/FoEN and the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) - is designed to educate Nigerians about the dangers of tobacco use and mobilize support for the implementation of the FCTC by the Nigerian government.

  
  The show is hosted by Betty Abah, a journalist who has written for several magazines including Tell, Newswatch, and The Voice.

Tobacco control advocates elated

Babatunde Irukera, the lawyer for the Nigerian government, told the Agence France Presse, "The federal government accuses the tobacco companies of being engaged in a conspiracy to target young people and conceal the harmful nature of smoking for several years.

"Finally, we now have a government that is connecting democracy and the protection of public health," said Akinbode Oluwafemi, national coordinator of the Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA). "The tobacco industry have over several decades addicted our children and women, inflicting monumental health and economic costs, now is the time to recoup all that this nation has lost."

Addressing journalists last month in Lagos, Oluwafemi said the Nigerian government spent more than $22 million to treat tobacco-related diseases in Lagos state. He said that a survey conducted in hospitals run by the Lagos state government showed that two persons die every day because of tobacco.

Dr. Olanrewaju Onigbogi, coordinator of Doctors Against Tobacco Nigeria (DATN), added "Half of the people who smoke," he said, "will eventually be killed by tobacco."