In a world marked World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) Yesterday activists passionate appeal of President Goodluck Jonathan: sign the bill on the National Tobacco Control (NTCB), to avoid death from tobacco. They said the statistics show an increase in mortality from tobacco because of the weak regime of tobacco control. Action for the Protection of the Rights (ERA), at an event on the occasion of  WNTD in Lagos, said the tobacco companies to interfere Bill become law .

    Its director of corporate accountability and the administration, Mr. Akibode Oluwafemi, said this year’s theme: tobacco industry interference in accordance with the current development in Nigeria. He said the President to obey the Constitution of 1999 in his address to the Bill. He quoted chapter five, section 68, subsection 4 and 5 of the Constitution, which reads: “If the bill is submitted to the President for approval, he shall, within 30 days of which means that he agrees, or that he holds the agreement. “Where the president holds his consent, and by the newly adopted each of the Legislative Chamber of the two-thirds votes, the bill shall become law and the president’s consent is not required.”

    Oluwafemi said that there is a need to tame the country’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), adding that Article 5.3 of the Convention states that “in developing and implementing their public health policies on tobacco control, Parties shall act in such a way as to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national legislation.” This, he says, means that the tobacco giants should be excluded from any step in the implementation of public health policy. He argued that executives of tobacco companies were in Aso Rock during the reign of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

     Oluwafemi quotes the World Health Assembly (WHA a) Resolution 18 on transparency in tobacco control: “The tobacco industry has operated for years with the explicit intention of undermining the role of government and the World Health Organization (WHO) in the implementation of public health policy in the fight against tobacco epidemic. ” According to him, the main motive of tobacco giants to weaken and undermine the country’s laws. Oluwafemi said that despite the ban on tobacco advertising, most tobacco companies are still free to show their ads in public places such as hotels. He said: “They are inserted at the kiosk posters to announce the promotion of free camera phones and umbrellas are provided free of charge to the market women with advertising on them.”

      Partner of the era, Corporate Accountability International (CAI), has released its annual report on tobacco entitled, cutting through the smoke. The report on the global history of the industry abuses, grassroots victories and a path to a healthy future. He said the families continue to suffer from the devastating health, financial and social consequences of tobacco-related diseases.