Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has pushed for the increment of taxes for tobacco products to render the addictive commodity unaffordable to more smokers.

Mr Ehanire said this during a news briefing in Abuja to mark the 2021 World No Tobacco Day. 

“Increasing excise tax on tobacco products to make it more unaffordable is a strong way to discourage tobacco use,” said Mr Ehanire while emphasising that the objective of the day was to advocate strong tobacco cessation guidelines and programmes.

Mr Ehanire quoted the World Health Organisation data as saying that there are more than 1.3 billion tobacco users in the world and that tobacco is in one way or another responsible for more than eight million deaths each year.

He said further that findings from the 2012 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) showed that 5.6 per cent of Nigerians, 15 years and older, currently use tobacco products of which 3.9 per cent are smokers. 

“The death toll from tobacco is high in Nigeria as the Tobacco Atlas of 2018 report estimates more than 16,100 deaths from tobacco-related diseases every year. 

The minister said that another research finding published in 2021 by the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA) showed that 29,472 deaths in Nigeria were attributable to smoking.

Mr Ehanire said that in order to tackle the tobacco menace, Nigeria signed and ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2004 and 2005, respectively. And that in furtherance of the WHO FCTC, Nigeria enacted the National Tobacco Control Act 2015 and the National Tobacco Control Regulations 2019.

According to him, the ministry in collaboration with WHO and Nigeria Tobacco Alliance (NTCA), will be conducting some activities to help address tobacco issues.

He listed some of the activities as virtual tobacco cessation webinar and setting up a tobacco cessation toll-free call centre in the ministry to offer cessation services to tobacco users.

“Beyond cessation services, Nigeria will, as from June 23, start implementation of graphic pictorial health warning messages and tobacco product packaging to replace the age-long health warning texts,” he announced.

Celebrated around the world every year on May 31, World No Tobacco Day was created by the Member States of WHO in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.