Nigeria’s government is demanding over $40 billion from Philip Morris, British American Tobacco (BAT), and International Tobacco Limited for promoting underage smoking in their country. According to The New York Times, Nigeria is aiming to stop the promotion, distribution and selling of cigarettes to minors by the end of this year.
“We are going to ban all newspaper, radio, television, and billboard advertising,” said Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Nigeria’s health minister, to the New York Times. “We are going to ban smoking in all public places and transport.”
Until the end of the year, cigarette ads can only be broadcasted on television and radio after 10 p.m. However, tobacco sellers are a common occurrence on the street, which give children an opportunity to smoke.
According to the BBC News, it’s not uncommon to see children buying and smoking cigarettes on the street. There is no enforcement that that stops the sale of tobacco to underage children.
As a result, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 18 percent of young Nigerians are smokers.
Underage smoking has also been a problem in other areas of the world, including the United States. Vernie Davis, a professor of peace and conflict studies, isn’t surprised that this issue is still being brought up.
“There’s a lot of evidence to show that advertising directed towards children is successful,” Davis said. “Camel cigarettes did this with television ads when they had Joe Camel talking to the audience. This isn’t just a matter of corporations, it’s also about the people who invest in these products.”
According to BBC News, BAT strongly rejects Nigeria’s criticism and is ready to defend itself. It claims to have never promoted smoking with the intended audience of children. Instead, it views the selling of tobacco as useful for the economy of some nations.
“Many developing countries with limited export opportunities find tobacco an important source of foreign currency,” read a BAT advertisement.
A spokesperson for Philip Morris also rejected this accusation, claiming that their company and its affiliates aren’t currently selling cigarettes in Nigeria.
The move to enforce anti-smoking restrictions isn’t fully supported by the people of Nigeria. According to The Republic, a Nigerian newspaper, the ban on the sales of cigarettes could come at a costly price.
“In this period of widespread unemployment, dwindling revenue and inflation, the tobacco companies, if forced out of business, will accentuate the economic plight.”
According to The New York Times, even Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the brother of the health minister, ignores the stigmatism of smoking and challenges the brutal, bigger issues in Nigeria, such as law enforcement. According to the Humans Rights Watch, the Nigerian police have created several acts of random torture ever since they were under military rule.
“If you stop people from smoking, the real problem of this country is going to get a lot of people mad,” Kuti said. “Police is the real problem – not the smoking.”
“We’re moving away from government regulation,” Davis said. “But you need to have that for corporations.”
It’s difficult to say whether Nigeria’s lawsuit will help fix the problem of underage smoking. Davis believes that this continuous problem has to do with the lack of a relationship between government and corporations.