By Ebun Sessou & Olayinka Ajayi

Hon. Yishawu Gbolahan is a member of Lagos State House of Assembly representing Eti-Osa Constituency 11 of the state who moved the motion against smoking in public places. The anti-smoking Bill has been passed into law by the Assembly and has since been generating reactions from people. He explains the need for the law. Excerpt.

What informed your decision to come up with a Bill to ban smoking in public places that is now a law?

The greatest asset of any nation is human resources. Nigeria has abundant human resources. So for us to ensure that our people stay healthy, we have to do things that are not inimical to their health. Smoking is bad and injurious to health. You can even see it on the pack of the cigarette that smoking is dangerous and that smokers are liable to die young. The smoke coming from smokers is equally dangerous and hazardous to others.

The substance coming from it causes cancer; it affects the lungs, kidney and even bladder. It affects fertility in men and women and is even more prominent in women than men. So, it is meant to safeguard the lives of Lagosians.

What sort of sensitization programme did government put in place before now?

The bill passed by the assembly is waiting for the assent of the Governor. Of course, the police know the law and if your rights are infringed upon, you can complain. It is always like that, but on awareness, we will definitely do that, it has become our tradition to do that.

The law provides for six months period after it is signed by the Governor. It gives ample time to sensitize our people about it.

Initially, when the okada (motorcycle) law came in, people felt their rights were being infringed upon, but later, they realized it is not so. Our awareness and sensitization would be done.

Where do we regard as public places?

Public places are where you don’t have exclusive right to such as  offices where people come and other places where people go.

…And the tax, government is getting from Tobacco companies, will the law not affect sales of cigarettes and then the revenue?

Thank God that a public hearing was held here on the issue and it was discovered that when a ban is placed on smoking of cigarettes in public places, it doesn’t affect sale of the products. Even in restaurants, where smoking was banned in the United States, their sales grew by one percent. People that would not stop smoking would not stop smoking. So, they said it themselves that it would not affect their sales. Even at that, you pay us N1 as tax and we have to spend N20 in treating people that are affected by the habit, it is not good enough. How do you now quantify the human loss and people that fall ill over the habit?

Most times, when you discuss issues on the assembly, you do so with facts; how is this law necessary now?

The issues here are two different things, we are talking of Smoking Law, it is not Tobacco Law, and we will still have Tobacco Law. If you put your cigarette on the table and you don’t light it, it is not going to hurt anybody. So while we are talking of this, the National Assembly is talking about making law on goods including tobacco. Look at the Tobacco Law the National Assembly is working on since 2006 or 2007, it is still there, and they have not passed it. I will rather take the shortest route than waiting for the Federal Government. If eventually they pass the Tobacco Law, it can subsume our Smoking Law.

Some of the indulgence could be a fall out of the economic problems in the country including smoking, drinking and other acts, don’t you think there is a wide gap between the leaders and the led?

I appreciate what you are saying, but I won’t agree with you totally because even abroad, where they have everything, there are more smokers there than here. The records are there. I told you 1.1 billion people now, which means one in nine people in the world smoke. What is the percentage of Nigerians there, if you take the world population and we give about 60 percent to children? It means one in every four adults smoke and that does not apply here. Here, women don’t smoke much; we don’t have information to tie smoking to poverty.

Another way you look at it is that smoking is expensive like a research showed that an individual spends as much as 1,000 pounds sterling on smoking in a year in the United Kingdom, which is about N250,000. So, smoking is not cheap at all.