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CONTENTS
OF SECOND EDITION OF EBIT MAGAZINE______________
EDITORIAL
You
are welcome to the 2nd quarterly edition of Every Breadth
I Take (EBIT).
Arising
fromm our inaugural edition, we have recieved several correspondences
from you all out there (our readers), feedbacks that are very
vital in ensuring the attainment of our enshrined objectives
in commencing this publication. We really appreciate those
who took out time to point out areas where they feel we could
have done better, such constructive criticism is always most
welcome.
Quite
a lot of our readers wondered if indeed cigarette was capable
of causing the various ailments listed in the pictorial of
‘The Smokers Body’, published at Page 11 of our
1st Edition. The simple response to that inquiry is ‘YES
!’. most unfortunately, however, cigarettes actually
causes much more harm and diseases than we are able to publish
on just one page of EBIT.
We
are for purposes of emphasis and to reach out to our first
time readers, re-publishing ‘The Smokers Body’,
this time on the back page. We are however deleting the lower
segment of the pictorial in reverence to some of our readers
who expressed misgivings with the full picture.
This
edition features an expository article on ‘Prostate
Cancer’, an ailment fast gaining notoriety in Nigeria,
nay the African continent. With an astonishingly high (16%
– 17%) prevalence rate amongst Nigerian males over 50years,
prostate cancer is surely a source of great concern to the
general populace. The goodnews is that with early detection,
wholesale cure is possible. If left undetected and untreated,
prostate cancer like all other cancers is a terminal ailment.
Read this article and pass on the message to your parents,
uncles and older male relatives and friends.
As
promised in our inaugural edition, we are presenting the first
in the series of the exploits of ‘PADDI’, a mythical
cartoon character, dedicated to the eradication of the twin
societal scourges of Ignorance and Substance abuse. The cartoon
segment will appeal to all, young and old, male and female,
smoker and non-smoker alike. This edition
Discusses the antics and craftiness of tobacco companies in
relation to circumventing regulatory mechanisms.
Our
segments on Advocacy, News & Tit-bits still feature prominently,
in addition to other items. This edition promises to be as
entertaining as it is educative.
Happy
reading !
Ms.
Chizomam Peace Ngoka (RN. RM.)
Editor
LICENCED
TO KILL.
Imagine
this scenario : The notorious Colombian ‘hard drug’
baron, Pablo Escobar (now deceased), in a bid to legitimize
his illicit trade in addictive substances, decides to legally
register/incorporate his organization as a commercial venture.
Pablo Escobar proceeds to register ‘Esco Hard Drugs
Ltd.’ with the Chamber of Commerce.
Esco
Hard-Drugs Ltd.’ has as its main objectives, the cultivation,
processing, packaging, sales and marketting of addictive substances.
CULTIVATION
:
To cultivate its addictive products, Esco Hard Drugs Ltd.
acquired the most fertile arable plots of land in the country.
Displacing countless number of subsistence food crop farmers
in the process. The local farmers, now displaced, were ‘encouraged’
to cultivate the addictive substance in replacement for their
previous food crops, such as yams, corn, beans, rice and so
on. This immediately gives rise to scarcity of food items,
malnutrition and disease. The foregoing problems was compounded
by an over-abundance of addictive substances available to
the public, with its concommitant problems.
Esco
Hard Drugs Ltd., crafty as usual, inserted clauses in the
contractual agreement between it and its Farmers, which ensured
that the said farmers were perpetually bonded to a life of
penury, servitude and misery. Esco Hard Drugs Ltd. supplied
the farmers with seedlings, pesticides and other tools neccessary
to cultivate the addictive substance, ON CREDIT. At this point
the farmers are not informed about the precise costs of the
farm inputs. The farmers were informed that payment will be
made from the proceeds of the harvests.
When
harvest time comes, Esco Hard Drug Ltd. agents assess the
proceeds of the harvests and the inform the farmers that the
costs of the inputs exceeds the proceeds of the harvests.
Thus the farmers always end up owing the company money at
the end of each harvesting/accounting season. This debt is
carried over into the next planting season, and thereafter
into the next generation of farmers, and so on.
NAME
CHANGE :
Realizing that its name was directly attracting scorn and
ridicle from the community, Esco Hard Drugs Ltd. hurriedly
convoked its Annual General Meeting where it voluntarily changed
its name to a more innocous ‘EHD Ltd.’). This
mere ‘cosmetic’ change in name did not however
affect the core objectives of the company. Nor its shylock
practices with local farmers that has directly led to the
impoverishment of thousands of rural families and communities.
PROCESSING
:
With regards to processing its addictive products, EHD Ltd.
embarked upon building a gigantaun ‘processing factory’
on which it claims to have spent and or invested several billion
U.S. Dollars. This, in truth, is yet another scam EHD Ltd.
has developed to siphon greatly needed foreign exchange out
of its country of operation to off-shore safe havens. EHD
Ltd. announced that its new factory will greatly ease the
unemplyment crisis of its host community – alas only
3 Office Cleaners and 2 Flower Cutters/Gardeners from the
host community, were employed at the ‘ultra-modern’
factory. The remainder of the staff were all ‘imported’
expatriates.
Processing
to covert the ‘leaves’ (raw materials) it has
garnered via cultivation into a finished state, the highly
addictive substance, EHD Ltd’s embarks upon a rigorous
process that is environmentally un-friendly and unsustainable.
Trees are cut down at a rate far in excess of the rate at
which they are re-planted. In processing its lethat product,
EHD Ltd. is also involved in deforestation at a massive scale.
PACKAGING :
Very conscious of the fact that its product is a harbinger
of disease and death and highly addictive, EHD Ltd. commissions
the best graphic artists in the land to produce distictive,
eye-catching and glossy packages for its lethal product. The
result is that EHD’s unhealthy and highly addictive
products are packaged as though they were life saving neccessities.
The
actual poisons contained in EHD’s products are not stated
on its package as required by law. Rather a mere mundane and
drab statement on the probability of the product being ‘risky’
to health is printed (usually in micro, hardly readable characters)
and positioned in some incospicous part of the package.
SALES
AND MARKETING :
It is in ‘sales’ and ‘marketing’ that
EHD exceeds all bounds of craftiness and negative ingenuity.
In a bid to circumvent restrictions on sales and promotion
of addictive substances, EHD has as a corporate policy, embarked
upon a continious, well orchestrated publicity stunt/road-show,
sponsoring everything from fashion Shows, Sporting Competitions,
Beauty Paegents, Intra-School Educational Competitions, Wedding
ceremonies and even Funeral Processions.
The
events sponsored or used to promote EHD’s addictive
products have little or no bearing to the lethal substance.
These events were selected purely for reason that they appeal
to th epublic (particularly the youths). EHD, in a clear-cut
instance of deceptive marketing, seeks to creat a linkage
between popular events and traditions with its lethal product.
During
and after such sponsored events, EHD ensures that its lethal
addictive products are prominently displayed and attimes ‘samples’
are freely distributed to members of the public irrespective
of age and gender.
Children
and youth are, most wickedly, particularly targetted in the
course of EHD’s sales and promotions. The basis of this
action by EHD as detailed in the companies internal memo’s
recently made available to the public is ‘to catch them
young’. EHD seeks to get the children and youth addicted
to its lethal products with the view of ensuring the continuity
of its profit margin in total disregard to the enormous health
and negative economic consequences to the country.
In
the midst of all this, ‘Pablo Escobar’ and the
other Directors of EHD smile home to the bank whilst the rest
of society agonize and groan under the severe health and economic
pains associated with addiction to lethal substances. EHD
privatizes its profits and socialize their costs.
THE REALITY : By now, some of us may think the scenario created
above is not possible, can never happen or is a mere night
mare. Well yea ! It is a nightmare quite well, only its the
nightmare we all in Africa live with.
The
scenario above happens every day of our lives. When you juxtapose
International Tobacco companies and their local subsidiaries
for ‘EHD Ltd.’ and Directors of such companies
for ‘Pablo Escobar’ and realize that the addictive
substance refered to is Cigarette, then the picture becomes
clearer and more vivid.
Cigarettes
are addictive !
Cigarettes kill over 4.8million people annually, globally
!
Yet certificates are issued to organizations to produce cigarettes
!
If
certificates can be issued to organizations to produce cigarettes,
then perhaps characters like Pablo Escobar (now deceased)
ought to have been issued with a licence to produce his equally
lethal addictive products. God Forbid !
The
‘Certificates of Incorporation/Registration’ accorded
to cigarette producing organization is actuallly a ‘licence
to kill’. This licence to kill ought to be either withdrawn
in its entirety or severely curtailed by means of strict regulatory
mechanisms.
PADDI
ORGANIZES WORKSHOP ON THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO
CONTROL WITH SUPPORT FROM THE AFRICAN REGIONAL OFFICE OF THE
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.
Sequel to a mandate secured from the African Regional Office
of the World Health Organisations’ Tobacco Free Initiative
(WHO-AFRO,TFI), People Against Drug Dependence and Ignorance
(PADDI) organised a 3-day residential workshop on the Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Owerri, capital city
of Imo state in the south-eastern region of Nigeria.
The
event aptly tagged ‘Multisectoral Workshop on Strenghtening
Local Tobacco Control Mechanisms and the Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC)’ had as its core objectives
:
a) to introduce the participants to the global Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC), its intendments, process and workability,
b) to farmiliarize the participants on the tobacco-control
regulatory mechnisms in force in other countries (particularly
the USA and countries of the European Union)’
c) to provide a forum for Legislators, Civil Society activists
and Journalisits to interact and discuss the FCTC, its practicability
in Nigeria and the prospect of enforcement of regulatory mechnisms.
Participants
invited to the workshop included, Federal and State Legislators,
Technocrats, Journalists, Civil Society leaders and Students
drawn from Imo and Abia states of Nigeria.
The
workshop which had a very interractive format, to elicit intellectual
dialogue over the core contents of the workshop amongst the
participants on the one hand and the participant and the Resource
Persons on the other hand. A panel of three distinguished
Resource Persons served as facilitators for the workshop.
These were :
*Dr Noel Onyewuotu, the Medical Director of Akarugo Group
of Hospitals Ltd, who presented a paper on the ‘Health
Consequences of Tobacco Consumption’ ;
*Mr Oluwafemi Akanbode, a well renowned tobacco control advocate
and project officer with Environmental Rights Action/Friends
Of the Earth(ERA/FOE) who dwelt on ‘FCTC,setting global
agenda for tobacco control’ ; and
*The Executive Director of PADDI, Eze Eluchie (an Attorney-of-Law)
who made the final presentation on ‘Comparative Analysis
Of Tobacco Control Legislations’.
At
the end of the workshop, the participants unanimously adopted
a wholistic all embrasing Communique reflecting on the need
to enhance tobacco control efforts at the Local, State and
National levels. This Communique has been effectively distributed
to relevant stakeholders, such as State and National Legislators,
Government Regulatory agencies and health focused civil society
organizations
As
part of our activities under this project, PADDI will over
a period of several months monitor the activities of the various
persons who participated in the workshop and other relevant
authorities and institutions. It is in furtherance of this
that PADDI has undertaken ‘advocacy visits’ to
the relevant Legislative Committes of the National and State
legislatures ;organized Pres Briefings and other mini training
sessions on the FCTC for civil society organizations and student
bodies.
A
copy of the Workshop communique is published hereunder :
COMMUNIQUE
CONCERNED about the ever increasing tobacco related deaths
world-wide, particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria
;
SHOCKED
by the fact that over 4.8million tobacco-related deaths occour
world-wide per annum (this amounts to approximately one death
every 6 seconds) – a figure far higher than the cummulative
annual global death toll from HIV/AIDS, Motor accidents and
Murder ;
ALARMED
that whilst our Federal Government insists that Nigerians
pay the ‘international price’ for such vital items
as petrol, electricity, health care and other public utilitties,
the same government is indifferent to the fact that cigarettes
(a product detrimental to the health of the populace in all
its ramifications) is still heavily subsidized. (Whilst a
packet of cigarette costs 5 British Pounds in England {N1,150}
or U.S.$7.20 in the United States {N1,010}, the same cigarette
produced by the same company in Nigeria, costs a mere N150
(one hundred and fifty naira).
EXPRESSING
WORRY on the abysmall level of ignorance of the trite health,
social and economic consequences of cigarette consumption
on our society ;
DISMAYED
by the attitude of tobacco multi-nationals operating in Nigeria,
particularly British America Tobacco (BAT) to adopt and apply
deceptive and innapropriate marketting and advertising practices
– practices which are not condoned in the multi-national
companies home country ;
REALIZING
that the tobacco industry (cigarette companies) are by all
definitions of the term ‘drug cartels’ –
organizations marketting highly addictive substances/drugs
and thus likely to and have repeatedly adopted sinister strategies
to protect their huge ‘illicit’ profit base ;
ENCOURAGED
by the provisiond intendments and derivable benefits from
the implementation and enforcement of the Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC) ;
The Participants now resolve as follows :
1.
The Nigerian Government should as a matter of urgency and
as a means of concretizing our avowed ‘leadership’
and ‘giant-of-Africa’ status on the African continent,
immediately SIGN and RATIFY the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control (FCTC).
2.
All traditional and customary rites which involve the presentation
of cigirette products should be prohibited. Cigarette consumption
has never been part of the history or culture of our peoples.
How it has been smuggled into some cultural observances such
as bride price, burial and age grade observances should be
discouraged and investigated.
3.
Community leaders at the grassroot level should be encouraged
to prohibit cigarette usage at community functions.
4.
Intensive preventive education and public awareness campaigns
on the adverse consequences of tobacco consumption should
be undertaken at all levels of government, religious and civil
society organisations.
5.
Regulatory mechanism( taxes, tariff, import quotation, etc.
) should be immediately applied on cigarettes to ensure that
this lethal product is not subsidised to ruin the Nigerian
nation.
6.
Product regulatory agencies, particularly the National Agency
on Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Standards
Organization of Nigeria (SON) should set up their regulatory
obligations in controling tobacco and cigarette consumption.
7.
The Participants strongly recommend the translation of the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, tobacco regulatory
policies documents and anti-tobacco campaign materials (posters,
stickers and so on) to our native languages for greater grassroot
outreach.
8.
Training of Trainers (T-o-T) of journalists, civil society
activists and policy makers on the need to confront the tobacco
epidemic should be intensified and continued. There must also
be oppourtunity for step-down training and dissemination of
ideas to rural and other grass-root communities.
9.
Participants agreed that ‘consequences of cigarette
consumption’ must be incorporated into the curricula
of educational institutions in the country.
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