In May this year, I received an unusual mail. It was an invitation from a public relations firm in South Africa, one I had never heard of, to attend a program in Cape Town. They would provide logistical arrangements. All that was required, was that I write and publish at least two articles related to the event and help amplify it across my networks.
On examining the flyer attached, I discovered it was for a Big Tobacco event, designed to promote their so-called smokeless but nicotine-laden products. It is probable that similar invitations were sent to selected journalists across Africa.
However, this is only one strand of a broader strategy. In recent times, the tobacco industry has been sponsoring media workshops presented as training on harm reduction, while pushing articles across digital platforms that cast emerging tobacco and nicotine products in a favourable light. These activities are carefully packaged as knowledge-sharing, but their underlying intent is to steer how tobacco commodities are framed in public conversations.
Big Tobacco continues to draw from its notorious playbook of tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship (TAPS) to design programs and shape narratives that hoodwink unsuspecting groups and downplay the deadly effects of its products. Where it cannot act openly, as in Nigeria and several other World Health Organisation (WHO) signatory countries which have banned TAPS, it deploys underhand tactics to undermine the restrictions.
The TAPS ban exists for a good reason. Every year, more than 29,000 Nigerians lose their lives to tobacco-related diseases. Globally, tobacco use claims over 7 million lives.
On this World Lung Day, themed “Healthy Lungs, Healthy Life”, we are reminded that tobacco remains one of the biggest threats to lung health, and Nigeria cannot afford complacency. Worldwide over 1 million people die due to lung cancer each year. It is estimated that cigarette smoking explains almost 90 percent of lung cancer risk in men and 70 to 80 percent in women. Furthermore, whether smoked, vaped or chewed, tobacco harms nearly every organ in the body, but its most devastating damage is to the lungs and the heart.
Currently, Big Tobacco is aggressively pushing what it calls Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR). Through this discredited concept, it lobbies to openly market nicotine-containing products, such as vapes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products (HTPs), smokeless nicotine pouches and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). These are presented as solutions to the very epidemic that Big Tobacco created and continues to fuel.
The claim is that these addictive products will help tobacco users quit, delivering a so-called smoke-free future.
But this is simply not true.
Smokeless tobacco, often branded by the industry as “safer”, has been linked to multiple health problems. It is a known risk factor for cancers of the mouth, throat, and pancreas, and contributes to heart problems and gum disorders. It can increase risk of early delivery and stillbirth, cause nicotine poisoning in children and heighten the risk of death from heart disease and stroke.
For a country like Nigeria, where healthcare systems are already overstretched, the tobacco burden is both a health crisis and an economic one. Treatment costs are prohibitive. Families are driven into poverty paying for care, while the country loses productivity from premature deaths. Research shows that Nigeria spends far more on treating tobacco-related illnesses than it earns from the tobacco industry’s profits and taxes. In short, tobacco drains our economy, health, and future.
The situation is even more worrisome considering Nigeria’s growing challenges with other forms of drug abuse. Yet, tobacco companies continue to flood our markets with cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, targeting young people as replacements for those killed or disabled by addiction.
Nigeria is a signatory to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), yet enforcement remains weak. To make World Lung Day meaningful, the country must strengthen enforcement of existing tobacco laws, including restricting sales to minors and applying robust oversight to emerging tobacco and nicotine products, so that no loopholes allow the industry to escape accountability.
Governments at all levels ought to also raise taxes on tobacco products to 100 percent as advocated by civil society, to reduce use, especially among youth.
Furthermore, investment in cessation support is critical, so that smokers and chewers who want to quit have access to affordable treatment and counselling.
In addition, farmers need support to transition to alternative crops, so they are not trapped in the tobacco economy.
There is no safe form of tobacco. To protect our lungs, we must reject Big Tobacco’s deceptive strategies and shun its products in every form.
And yes – in case you’re wondering – I did not honour the invitation.
Egbe is a tobacco control advocate at Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA).
