Tobacco Facts.

Minister of Health, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin has described the economic argument for the production of tobacco in Nigeria as making nonsense of the risk it portends to the people.

Prof. Osotimehin, who stated this at an interactive dinner, organized by Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora in conjunction with Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, to support the ‘National Tobacco Control Bill’, said the time has come for Nigeria to do everything possible to ban tobacco production in the country.

The Minister of Health lamented the havoc cigarette smoking has caused the nation, saying that while tobacco companies employed about 20,000 people, their products kill an average of 100,000 people per annum, a development he said is unacceptable to Nigeria.
He said on assumption of office, he made it clear to British American Tobacco (BAT) that visited him, seeking a working relationship, that there was no way such an understanding can take place because of the overall health interest of the people.

According to Osotimehin, “I want to tell you that I am very passionate about anti-tobacco legislation. The British-American Tobacco (BAT) people once came to talk to me on how we could work together but I said no! I cannot work with BAT people because the human cost of tobacco is enormous.
We should do everything possible to ban tobacco smoking because it does not add value at all. Some people talk about the economic value of tobacco companies, but I don’t believe there is any economic value because when they employ 20,000 people, they kill 100,000.”

He, therefore, urged Nigerians, particularly those in positions of authority, to work hard to ensure that Nigeria do not add to the burden already being suffered from HIV infections. The minister, therefore, assured that the Federal Government through the Ministry of Health would throw its weight behind the Anti-Tobacco Bill.

Earlier in his address, convener of the interactive session, Senator Mamora, noted that the United States of America, the highest consumer of tobacco, had legislated against tobacco, stressing that the fact remains that a poison remains a poison no matter how it is coloured.

According to Senator Mamora, “It is worrisome that tobacco companies are leaving the developed countries for the less developed, particularly Africa with Nigeria being the largest market, owing to lack of adequate legislation to curb the danger it portends on the citizenry.

In her remarks, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, assured that her committee has put in motion necessary arrangements to ensure the passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill with a view to enthroning a regime of health safety in the country.
© Copyright: Sunnewsonline

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