Nigeria has taken a giant step towards eliminating illicit trade on Tobacco in all parts of the country. This follows the ratification of the protocol on trading the harmful product by the Federal Executive Council, in line with provisions of the World Health Organisation, WHO.
Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewale, disclosed this to Journalists at the end of Wednesday’s meeting of the Council, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said: “At today’s meeting, Council ratified the protocol to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products. As you might be aware, Nigeria is a party to the WHO framework convention on tobacco control and we signed the protocol in 2004 and it became operational in 2005. What has happened now is that we’ve taken a step further by ratifying the protocol that we will control illicit trade in tobacco the beauty of this is that we will now be able to control smuggling, we will be able to track tobacco marketing and also be able to raise taxes and minimise the adverse effect of tobacco directly or indirectly on our population.”
The Minister said so far 35 countries have ratified the protocol, with Nigeria being the 35th to do so.
