Demands recall of amendment

Proposed amendment to Nigeria’s tobacco-control law has triggered a fresh public-health rejection, with a coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations accusing lawmakers of attempting to dismantle critical safeguards and create new commercial avenues for tobacco and nicotine companies.

The coalition, under the Nigeria Tobacco Control Community, said the consolidated National Tobacco Control Act (Amendment) Bill 2025 represented a dangerous departure from Nigeria’s existing tobacco-control framework and could expose millions of Nigerians, particularly young people, to aggressive promotion and easier access to emerging nicotine products.

Speaking at a press briefing, the Executive Director of the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), Akimbode Oluwafemi, said the country was facing “a major public health danger disguised as legislative reform.”

Oluwafemi said the coalition had scrutinised the consolidated bill and reached a damning conclusion: rather than strengthening the National Tobacco Control Act 2015 and its 2019 Regulations, the proposed amendments could create loopholes through which tobacco and nicotine companies would expand their market.

The organisations acknowledged that the existing law required updating in response to changing tobacco and nicotine markets but warned that modernisation must not become an excuse for weakening regulation.

At the centre of the controversy is a proposed amendment inserting “tobacco harm reduction objectives” into the purposes of the principal Act.

The coalition described the language as potentially deceptive, arguing that the concept could be exploited to justify lighter regulation of newer nicotine products.

According to the groups, portraying vapes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products as alternatives to conventional cigarettes must not automatically translate into weaker advertising, marketing, sales or public-health restrictions.

It warned that Nigeria could inadvertently move from controlling tobacco consumption to creating a regulatory environment in which the industry could promote a new generation of nicotine products to consumers.

IN a related development, the In-Country Coordinator, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (NTCA), Michael Olaniyan, while speaking during a briefing by tobacco-control advocates, declared that the proposed amendment was not about protecting Nigerians but about weakening the very laws designed to protect them.

“Harm reduction is not harm reduction. What we want is to eliminate, not to reduce.”

Olaniyan accused the government of presiding over an attempt to reverse Nigeria’s tobacco-control gains, alleging that the amendment had been expanded from a four-page document into a 34-page proposal containing provisions capable of fundamentally changing the existing regulatory framework.

He alleged that the amendment was effectively taking Nigeria backwards at a time when tobacco-control advocates were still battling to enforce existing restrictions.

Olaniyan warned that Nigeria could become a dangerous precedent internationally if “harm reduction” were formally embedded as an objective of a national tobacco-control law.

He accused the authorities of contemplating a reversal of restrictions on tobacco advertising while enforcement of existing advertising prohibitions remains incomplete.

He dismissed the proposed safeguard as potentially ineffective, especially on digital platforms where age verification could amount to little more than clicking “Yes, I am 18.”