By Musa Adamu
Abuja
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has called on the minister of health, Dr Isaac Adewole, to constitute the national tobacco control committee (NTCC) to implement the Tobacco control Act, 2015.
NTCC is vested with the responsibility of making regulations to govern the implementation of the Act as provided for amongst other responsibilities of the committee.
Briefing the media in Abuja, the executive director of the centre, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, represented by Mr Okeke Anya, also called on Nigerians to seize the moment and be on guard, pay attention to public health issues and play active role in ensuring that the Act was effectively implementation.
He said: ” Taxation has been proven to be a sure way to discourage purchase of tobacco products. We call on all stakeholders, and most especially, the government whose mandate it is to ensure tobacco control, to redesign the tax regime for the tobacco industry with the NGOs collaborating in initiating a tobacco campaign.”
It reiterated that tobacco consumption had remained the leading cause of preventable death, adding that statistics from the WHO reveals that over six million people die annually from tobacco consumption.
“Progression in this order will by the year 2030 amount to over eight million deaths annually with 80% of these deaths occurring in developing countries.
“Nigeria’s global adult tobacco survey (GATS) releases on July 1, 2013, also revealed that 10% of men, 1.1% of women and 5.6% overall currently use tobacco products.”
Against this backdrop, the centre blamed the tobacco industries for remaining adamant to the health implications of tobacco use and the millions of Nigerians at the risk for consuming tobacco.
