Nigeria Should Strengthen Tobacco Control, Not Embed Industry-Favoured “Harm Reduction” in Law.

ATIM joins Nigerian civil society in calling for scrutiny of amendments that could weaken controls on new nicotine products

The Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research (ATIM) supports calls by tobacco control civil society organisations in Nigeria for urgent reconsideration of proposed amendments to the National Tobacco Control Act that would introduce “Tobacco Harm Reduction” as a policy objective and create differentiated regulatory treatment for so-called non-combustible products. The development raises serious public health and concerns regarding Article 5.3. of World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). Nigeria’s parliamentary records show that the amendment process was originally presented as an effort to correct defects in the National Tobacco Control Act 2015, strengthen its implementation and close loopholes that could be exploited by the tobacco industry. Yet, the harmonised Bill subsequently considered by the House of Representatives introduced “Tobacco Harm Reduction” among the objectives of the legislation and established separate provisions for non-combustible products, including electronic nicotine products and nicotine pouches.

This transformation deserves greater scrutiny. Nigerian civil society organisations had earlier called for amendments to strengthen the existing law and close regulatory gaps affecting emerging tobacco and nicotine products. Instead, some provisions in the harmonised Bill risk creating weaker or preferential regulatory pathways for products increasingly central to the commercial strategies of multinational tobacco companies.

Nigeria’s success should be protected, not put at risk

Nigeria does not need to make “tobacco harm reduction” a statutory policy objective to continue reducing smoking. Adult smoking prevalence is now estimated at around 5–6%, approaching the less-than-5% level commonly used internationally to describe a smoke-free society. This represents substantial progress from the considerably higher smoking prevalence reported in previous decades. Nigeria should build on that achievement through stronger implementation of proven WHO FCTC measures and not risk reversing it by creating regulatory opportunities for a new generation of nicotine products.

The priority should be to strengthen comprehensive smoke-free environments; prohibit tobacco and nicotine advertising, promotion and sponsorship; strengthen health warnings and taxation; improve cessation support; address illicit trade; strengthen tobacco control governance and implementation of Article 5.3; and close regulatory gaps so that emerging nicotine products cannot create new pathways to nicotine addiction, particularly among young people. WHO itself has warned that as cigarette smoking declines, the tobacco and nicotine industries are increasingly turning to new nicotine products and aggressively targeting young people. WHO therefore calls on governments to strengthen implementation of the FCTC and regulate new nicotine products while closing loopholes that allow industry marketing.

Why embed a changing commercial concept in legislation?

ATIM is particularly concerned about embedding “Tobacco Harm Reduction” as an objective of national legislation.Public health legislation should establish durable principles capable of protecting populations over decades. Product technologies, scientific evidence and concepts used to describe tobacco and nicotine products will continue to evolve. Elevating a contested product-based concept into a statutory objective risks locking Nigeria’s tobacco control framework into today’s industry-favoured policy discourse and potentially constraining future governments as products, evidence and public health priorities change.

Nothing prevents Nigeria from adopting evidence-based cessation or risk-reduction interventions where independently demonstrated to benefit population health. Such decisions can be made through public health policy and regulation as evidence evolves. They do not require “Tobacco Harm Reduction” to become an overriding legislative objective.More importantly, Nigeria’s current challenge is not an absence of alternatives to cigarettes. It is ensuring that fewer people start smoking, more smokers quit, people are protected from second-hand smoke, existing tobacco control measures are fully enforced, and new nicotine products do not reverse progress by recruiting a new generation into nicotine dependence.

Who introduced the new provisions?

There is also an important transparency question that requires an answer. The original amendment proposals presented to stakeholders were largely framed around strengthening implementation, correcting weaknesses in the existing Act and increasing penalties. The subsequent harmonised legislation contains a considerably more elaborate regulatory framework for non-combustible products and expressly introduces tobacco harm reduction into the objectives of the Act.

ATIM has not established that the tobacco industry drafted or caused the insertion of these provisions. However, given the commercial importance of new nicotine products to multinational tobacco companies, the provenance of these substantial changes should be publicly explained.The house should disclose the stakeholders who proposed the relevant provisions, submissions received during the legislative process, meetings held with tobacco and nicotine industry representatives or organisations representing their interests, and the evidence relied upon in introducing the differentiated framework.

Such transparency is particularly important under WHO FCTC Article 5.3, which requires governments to protect tobacco control policymaking from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.

Africa should watch Nigeria closely

Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest countries and an influential regional policymaker. Its legislation can provide a precedent that may subsequently be invoked elsewhere on the continent. Allowing tobacco harm reduction to become an explicit legislative objective while creating weaker regulatory pathways for emerging nicotine products could therefore have implications far beyond Nigeria.

ATIM calls on tobacco control organisations, researchers, professional associations and public health advocates across Africa to stand with Nigerian civil society in demanding that the amendments strengthen not weaken the country’s tobacco control framework. Regional civil society should also remain alert to attempts to introduce similar language into tobacco control legislation elsewhere and should demand transparency wherever industry-preferred concepts or regulatory distinctions emerge during legislative processes.

Nigeria has made important progress in reducing smoking. The task now is to accelerate that progress towards a genuinely smoke-free generation and not create new opportunities for nicotine addiction or reopen policy space for an industry whose commercial future increasingly depends on selling new nicotine products.

Nigeria should strengthen what has worked, close the remaining gaps and regulate new products firmly within a public health framework consistent with the WHO FCTC.