By
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre
(CISLAC) has called on the Federal Government to increase taxes on tobacco to
raise its prices with a view to reducing the consumption in the country.
Mr Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director, CISLAC
said this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, insisting that such measure had
been implemented in countries where the tobacco companies operated.
Rafsanjani also said that such companies paid huge
penalties for the violation of such law in their home countries, adding that
Nigeria should not jettison the measure.
He said CISLAC condemned in totality, the open
display of rascality arising from the recent threats by a tobacco company and other
multinational tobacco firms in some African.
“We are not unaware of some dangerous and terrible
efforts by the group to frustrate successes against tobacco use across Uganda,
Namibia, Togo, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Burkina
Faso.
“They do not mind the fact that tobacco use
constitutes the second major cause of mortality in the world, leading to
untimely deaths of millions of people worldwide with six million deaths
annually.’’
He said that there was also the potential of having
eight million estimated deaths by 2030, most especially people in developing
countries.
The Executive Director said that CISLAC was also
aware of evil propensity of Tobacco Industries’ legal intimidation and threats.
He said but such threats should not constitute a
formidable obstacle to the current gains recorded against the dreaded effects
of tobacco use in Africa.
The Executive Director said the ongoing drives for
the passage of Tobacco Control Regulations in Nigeria would soon be before the
National Assembly for the effective implementation of the National Tobacco
Control Act 2015.
He urged the National Assembly and the government
not to succumb to the legal and economic threats by the tobacco firms.
Rafsanjani also called on them to uphold the implementation
of the regulations in accordance to the pro-poor provisions of WHO.
He said the advice became necessary in view of the
serious implication of the use of tobacco to the socio-economic burden of use
on families, the poor, and health systems.
Rafsanjani also called on the Federal and state
Ministries of Agriculture to invest in healthy means of livelihood for
Nigerians and find alternative crops for hapless tobacco farmers to effectively
engage in.
This, he said was to avert economic threats by
tobacco industries and avoid epidemic of Green Tobacco Sickness, a disease
common to tobacco farmers.
He also called for intensified and continuous
awareness among policy sponsors and policy champions of tobacco control to
fast-track the passage/implementation of Comprehensive Tobacco Control laws
across Africa.
