The Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance has urged various authorities, including the Standards Organisations of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Nigeria Police Force, and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection, to promptly initiate the enforcement of the graphic health warnings policy on tobacco products.
The alliance highlighted that the Federal Ministry of Health had sanctioned the use of a graphic health warning, featuring an image depicting mouth cancer caused by tobacco use, to be displayed on the packaging of all tobacco products. This directive, according to the group, became effective in June 2023.
However, during a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Akinbode Oluwafemi, the group’s chairman, disclosed that their market survey indicated that many tobacco industries had not yet adhered to the updated graphic health images on their product packaging. He further noted a lack of compliance, particularly with tobacco products such as shisha, cigars, snuff, and cigarillos.
Oluwafemi said, “To monitor compliance with this critical policy, as recently as this week, we activated Alliance members in the Federal Capital Territory, also, in Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Nasarawa, Kano, Adamawa, and Oyo states, to carry out market surveys to determine the level of compliance within their states.
“The survey results show that while some cigarette packs bear the new sets of warnings, some still carry the outdated pictorial warning, and worse still, a sizeable number of packs bear the very old ‘text-only’ warnings.
“The survey also revealed that compliance with other tobacco products such as shisha, cigars, snuff, and cigarillos is almost nonexistent.”tobacco products such as shisha, cigars, snuff, and cigarillos is almost nonexistent.
“We call on Standards Organisations of Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Health, the Nigeria Police Force, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp, and all agencies tasked with enforcement of tobacco control laws to save Nigerians by beginning the enforcement of the graphic health warnings policy without delay on all tobacco products.”
