By Princewill Ekwujuru

Public discourse about the effect of tobacco in Nigeria in recent time suggests that the best way to end health risk associated with tobacco product is to so stop tobacco companies from producing. This however may lead to other consequence including loss of revenue to the government, unemployment and other societal costs. Meanwhile smokers will still get the products through a variety of sources although at a higher cost.

This perhaps occasion the statement by underpins the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa at the recent hearing by the Senate Committee on Health for an Act to repeal the Tobacco Control Act 1990 CAP.T16 and to enact the National Tobacco Control Bill, NTCB 2012 and 2014. He said that the intention of the Committee was not to kill legitimate local tobacco production companies.

There is however the challenge or risk of what some industry pressure groups, and the British American Tobacco of Nigeria, BATN called ‘unbalanced regulation’, which they argue may lead to upsurge in illegal tobacco business as it happened in the case of the ban on frozen products, rice, vehicle tires and more by previous administrations.

Likewise, excessive consumption of anything is risky to the body, thus regulations are important for most consumables because of the inherent risks in over-consumption, of which tobacco products are no exception. The need for regulation does not imply that the supposed risk associated with tobacco product should be combated with draconian law. At the core of the regulation is government, consumers, general public and the industry.

Statistics however, has shown that many developing countries, particularly most African countries, a small fraction of their population smoke.

The overall smoking rates among men and women in Africa are low compared to other developed nations. According to 2009 country by country smoking data by Tobacco Atlas, smoking among males in Australia was 22.3 per cent, Denmark 30 per cent, Greece 63 per cent, US 32 per cent Canada 23.8 per cent while it is 10.6 per cent in Ghana, 15.2 in Benin, 8.9 percent in Niger, 15.6 in Senegal. The Global Adult Tobacco Survey, GATS 2013, conducted by National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, estimated that 5.6 per cent of Nigerians consume tobacco products.

What can render any regulation ineffective is to model it along certain framework developed by bureaucrats not minding contextual differences in each country. Unfortunately, the current tobacco bill at the Senate is modeled to World Health Organisation, WHO projection and its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, FCTC, which was designed in 2003. The key driver of anti-tobacco advocacy and the current bill is largely driven by the WHO’s projection that 70 per cent of estimated 8.4 million tobacco death will occur in developing countries by 2020. This in turn had resulted into hordes of legislative interventions.