From: This Day Live
Abimbola Akosile examines the tobacco industry in Nigeria, with focus on illicit trade and illegal smuggling of products and government’s attempts to check and regulate a lucrative sector.
Someone once told this reporter a simple fact about Nigeria. He said, albeit in a cynical manner, that if one wants any item to flourish in Nigeria’s huge markets, just wait for the government to ban that item.
To back his argument, he pointed at rice, frozen poultry products, and used tyres, which although under the import prohibition list, still daily flow into Nigeria through both monitored and porous borders, generating billions in illicit trade.
Visits to the right markets only serve to buttress the cynic’s position, which only goes to show that although regulation and checks may be in place, no product can actually remain effectively banned in Nigeria. But that is a topic for another day.
Tobacco Industry
This feature is about the multi-billion dollar tobacco industry, where local production, imports and illicit trade through illegal smuggling of products appear to exist and occur simultaneously.
A 2005 study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that more than 30 per cent of cigarettes smoked in Nigeria are smuggled. A more recent (2012) publication by the World Custom Journal, which is in the process of verification, claimed the volume has dropped to less than 10 per cent.
Annually, up to $50 billion or more is estimated to be lost by governments collectively to the illicit trade in tobacco products.
Although government, particularly the National Assembly, seems bent on regulating the tobacco industry, the huge gains accruing to producers and importers and also smugglers, and the massive local patronage and consumption of tobacco products appear stacked against such regulatory moves.
