Firms Secretly Paying Celebrities To Promote Tobacco – ERA

Due to the restriction on the use of tobacco in Nigeria, tobacco companies now secretly contract celebrities in the entertainment industry to promote the products, albeit subtly.

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Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) disclosed this at a press briefing in Lagos on Monday.

Akinbode Oluwafemi, deputy executive director of ERA/FoEN, told newsmen at the briefing that the non-governmental organisation, which has a social media arm, had been monitoring the activities of some Nigerian celebrities and their lifestyle on the internet.

According to him, tobacco companies, knowing the mammoth following some top entertainers command, use them to promote such harmful products.

 For example, the rights group alleged that 2Baba, who has close to three million followers on Instagram and Twitter, was reportedly caught subtly promoting tobacco. Other popular music acts like Olamide had also been caught in the act, the noted. However, he said those celebrities retracted such posts when confronted.

The organisation has, however, vowed to continue exposing such acts. The movie industry was not left out in the abuse of tobacco, as one of the participants during the briefing cited a Yoruba movie in which a 14-year-old boy was featured to smoke cigarettes in order to depict his membership of a criminal gang.

ERA, therefore, appealed to the governments at all levels to toe the path of some countries that had banned shisha use and shisha bars as well as countries like India where movies are rated along tobacco lines.

It pointed out that in some Bollywood flicks, viewers are warned of tobacco scenes, even at the beginning of the movies.

Considering the lack of enforcement of the regulations on tobacco, Oluwafemi disclosed that ERA might take to protests to drive its point home, “since it seems to be the language the government understands.

“Something serious needs to be done about using the entertainment industry to promote tobacco,” he said. Arguing that Nigeria does not need shisha, he called for its outright ban.

Lamenting the delayed implementation of the National Tobacco Control (NTC) Act three years after the bill was signed into law, he commended the media for sustained reportage of the issue, which led to the heath minister’s announcement on the commencement of the enforcement of nine key provisions of the NTC Act, which do not require regulations.