By Toyin Victor, Abuja
Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, CAPPA, has asked the National Assembly to release comprehensive legislative records on the National Tobacco Control Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025, amid growing concerns that proposed changes could weaken Nigeria’s tobacco-control safeguards.
CAPPA’s Media and Communications Officer, Robert Egbe, said the Freedom of Information request is intended to establish the legislative history of the Bill and determine how provisions considered harmful to public health found their way into the current consolidated version.
The request, dated August 13 and addressed to the Clerk of the Senate, followed calls by the Nigeria Tobacco Control Community, a coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations, public-health advocates and tobacco-control stakeholders, for the immediate recall of the Bill.
CAPPA is demanding certified copies of the Senate and House of Representatives Votes and Proceedings covering every stage of the Bill’s consideration, including first and second readings, committee referral, consideration of committee reports, third reading and passage.
It also wants the dates of each legislative stage, names and constituencies of sponsors and co-sponsors, records of divisions or recorded votes, relevant committee reports, public hearing records, stakeholder submissions and the Bill’s current status, including whether it has been transmitted for presidential assent.
The organisation invoked Sections 1(1), 2(3)(f) and 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011, and requested that the National Assembly provide the information within the statutory seven-day period.
The concerns centre on proposed changes involving non-combustible nicotine products, advertising and promotion, online sales, point-of-sale promotion, product sampling, packaging and penalties.
The Nigeria Tobacco Control Community has questioned how some of the disputed provisions entered the consolidated Bill, saying they were not contained in versions presented at a public hearing on November 22, 2024.
CAPPA and other tobacco-control stakeholders are now calling for the immediate recall of the Bill and a fresh, transparent, public-health-led review, warning that amendments intended to address emerging nicotine products should strengthen Nigeria’s safeguards against tobacco-related disease and nicotine addiction, rather than create new regulatory loopholes.