BY EMMANUEL ONWUKA
By 21, Audu had already lost a great deal to tobacco. What he thought was a cheap adventure became one of his most expensive investments. He is among the many young Nigerians who live on the fringes of Nigeria’s administrative capital, Abuja. According to an account published by Premium Times in May 2026, Audu’s early tobacco use exposed him to respiratory diseases, which later developed into lung disease that disrupted his education and prevented him from fully participating in the ordinary experiences of youth. His story was cited by Dr Pavel Ursu, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Nigeria Country Representative, as an illustration of what early tobacco addiction can do to a young life.
There is something particularly unsettling about Audu’s story. At 21, he was not supposed to be an old man’s warning. He was supposed to be in the middle of becoming one. His experience is a useful starting point for a conversation about Nigeria’s changing nicotine market, as the tobacco industry is no longer selling only the product most Nigerians recognise as tobacco. The cigarette, with its smell, smoke and ash, is increasingly sharing the market with products that look cleaner, more technological and, in some cases, almost completely disconnected from the image of smoking.
Vapes. Heated tobacco products. Nicotine pouches.
They come in flavours. They fit into pockets. Some resemble gadgets. Others can be used without producing visible smoke. Their marketing increasingly speaks the language of technology, lifestyle, choice and, most importantly, harm reduction.
What happens when an industry whose commercial survival depends on selling nicotine begins to position itself as part of the solution to the harms it causes?
That is where Nigeria’s tobacco story has grown more complicated.
And this is why the controversy surrounding the proposed amendment to the National Tobacco Control Act should not be viewed simply as another disagreement over a piece of legislation.
The bill is one part of a much bigger story about how the tobacco industry is changing the way it communicates, the products it sells, and the allies it cultivates.
The product has changed. So has the pitch.
In 2024, journalists with The Colonist Report Africa visited markets and major retail outlets in Port Harcourt and found nicotine-containing disposable vapes openly displayed in shops and supermarkets. The investigation documented products described as containing 2 per cent and 5 per cent nicotine, priced from about ₦1,000 to ₦18,000. The journalists also found products imported from Europe, the United States, China, Canada and Dubai.
The significance of that investigation was not simply that vapes were available. It was that they were becoming ordinary. They were sitting on shelves, being sold alongside other consumer products to young Nigerians.
They were entering spaces where a young person could encounter them without necessarily recognising the experience as involving the tobacco industry.
The investigation also found that manufacturers promoted vaping as a means for smokers to gradually quit. However, the WHO warns that e-cigarettes have not been proven effective for smoking cessation at the population level.
Harm reduction is now part of tobacco companies’ commercial strategy. Professor Best Ordinoha of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital described treating patients suffering from the effects of vaping, including couples.
He stated that nicotine affects the brain and heart and that vaping could cause short- and long-term illness. He described short-term problems, including throat and mouth irritation, cough and respiratory infections, while warning that potential long-term effects could take years to manifest.
In February 2026, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa published New Smoke Trap, a report based on field surveillance in Lagos, Enugu and the Federal Capital Territory from October to December 2025.
The researchers documented 781 tobacco and nicotine-related products, of which 573 were classified as new and emerging nicotine and tobacco products. E-cigarettes alone accounted for 522 products. The significance lies not in the number but in the variety available to consumers.
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The products increasingly occupy a distinct cultural space from cigarettes. CAPPA’s researchers documented products that were compact, flavoured and designed to resemble everyday consumer objects, noting their visibility in supermarkets, nightlife venues and digital spaces frequented by young people.
The National Tobacco Control Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which is awaiting the president’s assent, shows that Clause 1 would introduce a new objective “in consonance with Tobacco Harm Reduction objectives” and cover the regulation of non-combustible products. The bill also creates a statutory category of non-combustible products.
Civil society groups have raised concerns about proposed provisions allowing advertising of non-combustible products in adult publications, at points of sale, and online, as well as sponsorship of cultural and social events, and the introduction of the harm reduction objective. They have also questioned proposed warning requirements and the classification of heated tobacco products as non-combustible products.
The tobacco industry has a documented history of seeking to influence policy through direct lobbying, third parties, public-relations campaigns, corporate social responsibility, research and other forms of engagement.
Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) exists precisely because governments recognise the fundamental conflict between the tobacco industry’s commercial interests and public health policy. WHO has been explicit about the industry’s use of harm-reduction rhetoric.
A WHO FCTC presentation in 2025 described harm-reduction marketing rhetoric as part of a broader industry “redemption narrative” and warned that the industry was reinventing established tactics to influence politics, public opinion and science.
Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control also requires countries to protect tobacco-control policies from the tobacco industry’s commercial and other vested interests.
Its implementation guidelines recommend limiting unnecessary interactions with tobacco companies, increasing transparency of government-industry interactions, preventing conflicts of interest, scrutinising information supplied by the industry, and ensuring that policymaking is protected from commercial influence.
The Way Forward
Nigeria cannot afford to allow “harm reduction” to become a means of expanding the nicotine market while the country is still struggling to enforce existing tobacco-control laws. The priority must be to protect public health, prevent young people from becoming addicted to nicotine, and ensure that new products do not create regulatory loopholes that the industry can exploit.
The president, leaders of the legislature, and other stakeholders must also subject the proposed National Tobacco Control Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025, to rigorous, independent scrutiny. Any amendment to the current law to that seeks to introduce “Tobacco Harm Reduction” as a policy objective should be halted.
Government must also ensure that tobacco industry interests do not undermine the enforcement of tobacco-control laws and regulations. National laws inspired by Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control should guide interactions between public officials and the tobacco and nicotine industry.
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