CSO demands total ban on smoking in Nollywood scenes

The Civil Society Organisation, CSO, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, CAPPA, on Thursday, demanded a total ban on smoking in Nollywood movies as they, directly and indirectly, advertise of products of tobacco companies.

The Executive Director, CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, stated this at a media briefing on “Smoke-free Movies’ held in Abuja

While speaking, he said over the years the tobacco companies in Nigeria have exploited the entertainment industry; films and music videos to encourage and force young Nigeria into smoking tobacco without letting them know the bad effect on health that could kill them

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He stated, “Thus practice has long been documented across the globe and has informed the need for some form of regulation of contents accessible to the young. Such regulations are in place in the US, India, Canada, and some other western nations.

However, the World Health Organisation, WHO, former Director, Dr Douglas Bettcher on February 1st 2016 said, the film remains the last channels exposing millions of adolescents to smoking imagery without restrictions”.

“Nigeria’s weak tobacco control regulations and poor enforcement have also been exploited by the tobacco industry which continues to glamourise smoking on set and in music videos.

He explained the need for CAPPA to collaborate with Kannywood to tackle the menace in its scenes based on a survey conducted showing about 12 movies displaying tobacco scenes recklessly.

He added that the parley was a follow-up to the first held on November 21, 2020, in Lagos with entertainment stakeholders.

“The need to checkmate the industry and compel stakeholders in the sector to play active roles in the introduction of stringent measures to curb the industry’s stranglehold on the youth population informed”.

“Our decision to engage with Kannywood in the north is informed by a research carried out by CAPPA in 2020 to get a clear picture of the depth of the depiction of smoking in Nigerians movies”.

“The research looked at recent films from the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria (Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa) sold in the open market and the indirect ways they were used to advance tobacco products”.

In furtherance, he said “The smoking scenes in the films were not necessary to help the film realise its purpose. The conclusion is that the smoking scenes may have been inserted in the films to promote smoking consciously or unconsciously”, he stated.

A legal practitioner, Michael Olaniyan also speaking on the law against advertising tobacco, noted that there are subtle ways tobacco companies are hiding under movies and music videos to push their products out to young people, and by so doing exhibit total disregard for the law of the country.

He also urged the government agencies to enforce the law against tobacco smoking by punishing tobacco companies influencing young people, and also promoting their deadly products through the movie industry

He, therefore, called on Kannywood to enforce provisions of the law, which Nollywood should do same.

A movie Director in Kannywood, however, said “Smoking has been passed from one generation to the other that in this northern part of the country you see a whole family including father and mother will smoke in the presence of their wards without feeling anything, and these wards see their parents smoking take on with that habit and grow up with that smoking, and that is how children of 10 and 11 years go into smoking.

“We in Kannywood identifies with the ‘Smoke-free Movie Campaign, and also we welcome sensitisation awareness and collaboration with anti-tobacco groups.

“Kannywood is also ready to produce movies and jingles that have very good points going against smoking.

“Kannywood will want to be part of National Tobacco Control Committee to save our children from the dangers inherent in tobacco smoking”, he stated.